21–30 of 108 posts
The author makes the mistake of equating market share with revenue - it is quite possible that Apple's 19% market share is makes more for them than Nokia at 24%, or even Nokia at 40%.
Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…
They may not care about market share at any cost, but they do care about it quite a lot. They may have said they don't care about market share in the old Mac days, but it's not like they could do much about it, so what else could they have said?
There we go again. Market share. Author did not even bother to consider, at whose expense Samsung and HTC are gaining said share. Apple did grow too. Now 47% of their revenue comes from the product which was launched into the market where Apple had zero marked share and was laughed at for even trying. Another 21% comes from product which did not even exist 1.5 years ago. Author did forget to include these graphs: htt…
Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…
First, by suing, Apple has vouched for the quality of Samsung's products. It is the Windows look-and-feel lawsuit all over again. Right or wrong, Apple has just stood up and admitted that Android (or at least Samsung's take on Android) is "good enough". That's just a mistake and you only make it out of fear.
Now think about what a lawsuit says about what is going on inside Apple. Suppose Apple truly believes they have a kick-ass portfolio of next-generation products that will blow Samsung and the rest out of the water this fall. Would they really waste their time and attention on the complex, multi-theater, drawn-out, unpredictable war that suing Samsung is going to be? They aren't HTC, there is no hope of squashing them quickly (not to mention the huge supplier relationship). Or would they just say "eat our dust" and move onto the next thing (transitioning to new suppliers if necessary)?
Even beyond the lawsuit, there just seem to be so many recent examples of Apple signaling that they don't believe that they can win in the marketplace (e.g. the in-app purchase fiasco). To me, that smells like fear and a lot of it.
Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…
> Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary mark…
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-smarphone-profits-2011-...
And the quarter before that: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/31/apple-is-still-suckin...
And the quarter before that: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/21/pie-chart-apples-outr...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Samsung makes eerily close copies of the iPhone As a former iPhone-owner gone (Samsung) Android I resent that comment. iOS is a one-dimensional, inflexible and locked down platform which bored the hell out of me and this was the primary reason I went over to Android. Android and Samsung's phone (the Galaxy S, which I have and which they are sueing for) is nothing like the iPhone and every single day I'm very happy fo…
Apple certainly thinks very different, and the court will decide, won't it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The profit margin is more important than market share. Profit = products sold * profit margin. If you have to decrease your profit margin, to increase market share, the total profit might suffer.
Why would they have to decrease profit margin?
Apple typically hasn't done this (or certainly not to the extent other mfgs do) but certainly still like talking about their increasing market share.
Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…
> Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary mark…
For example 30% of a total 100M units sold is roughly the same of 19% of a total 150M units sold. IF APU stay the same, it makes no difference financial wise to Apple. But to achieve 30% of 150M units sold, Apple may have to branch out another line of more affordable phones, it may have to give more control to the carriers, it may have to iterate on a faster pace than it is comfortable with, all of these would hit Apple's margin and equal things out.
With Nokia LG SE and Motorola in the red, Apple is now siphoning about 50% of industry profit at a market share of, what, 5% of all phones sold?
Which is not to say market share is not important, but it is not the utimate goal.
For now Apple's more urgent problem remains to be manufacturing capability, its fancy process or unique components always causes shortage upon new iOS devices launch and well into the second quarter, it almost forms a pattern (iPhone 3G/iPhone 4/iPad 2 etc). If the murmurs from Foxconn et al is to be believed the same backlog will happen to iPhone 5/iPad 3 again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you really think they don't care about market share and money or being the top dog, you're wrong and they've fooled you. That's their number one concern, they're a business.
Indeed they are the business. Business means making money not market share. That post misses one small graph: the profit share of Apple in mobile space.
As for the litigation, I don't know that it is necessarily tied to the fact that android has taken off so well. Like it or not, most hardware vendors use apple as a hardware benchmark, so copying their products is inevitable. I would not want to sit idly while other people make knockoffs of my products either.