Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

counterpointresearch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 265 posts

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#51

Post by sumtechguy »

InTheArena wrote: post #5
gbrown wrote: post #2

I really wish there was more competition in this space. Here's hoping someone like Canonical tries again now that the open-hardware world is starting to expand.

there will be - but it will be in the form of a Chinese mandate to provide phones that do not use Western Operating systems or without western data privacy protections. Ideas like what Canonical and Firefox tried to do were great, but didn't have enough in it for the powers that be to be successful.

you can have the best phone ever. but if you can not talk the big phone companies into putting it on their shelves you are going to have a rough time. my suspicion is android is only as big as it is because verizon did not want to budge on that data thing with Steve jobs. at&t was willing to play ball and it was exclusive and verizon was caught with feature phones only and a couple of janky wince phones with terrible data plan costs.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#52

Post by r3trohack3r »

gtirloni wrote: post #19

> In Q2 2021, it captured 75% of the overall handset market operating profit and 40% of the revenue despite contributing a relatively moderate 13% to global handset shipments So they charge a premium for their phones, that's all. Android completely obliterates Apple if you count number of units shipped.

Android is an operating system. Apple is a company.

“That’s all” is disingenuous. If Samsung could charge a similar premium for their phones, and capture a similar profit, I’m fairly confident they would.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#53

Post by criddell »

johnchristopher wrote: post #22
conductr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me there’s plenty of competition. Apple just consistently wins. Consumers are willing to pay more per device and it flows through to profit. The others are competing on price and their margins reflect it.

I was talking with a MediaMarkt employee last week, we were talking smartphones and we both were dumbstruck about iphone prices. We agree it's good hardware/products but the price is insance. Yet people buy them in bulk. The brand is that strong. Apparently people also rush to replace their old models every year or two. Anyway, it just popped into my mind that I dreamt about buying a phone last night and the shop's o…

> Apparently people also rush to replace their old models every year or two.

The resale prices on used Apple hardware is pretty good. When you factor that in, an iPhone may very well be less expensive than a competing Android device.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#54

Post by thefounder »

tootie wrote: post #31
gbrown wrote: post #2

I really wish there was more competition in this space. Here's hoping someone like Canonical tries again now that the open-hardware world is starting to expand.

There's tons of competition in terms of products, but Apple wins on marketing every time. They are able to charge a massive markup by leveraging their market placement as a luxury brand.

Apple wins because of its software not because of its marketing.

It seems the competition still doesn't get that Android is not good enough to compete with Apple on the luxury/premium market. Most of the "extra" software developed by the competition is bloatware and spyware. The core design is developed only by Google who is weaker on design than Apple.

That's why Apple gets the bulk of the premium market and leaves the competition to battle on the cheap segment.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#55

Post by colinmhayes »

thefounder wrote: post #43
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't. Only first time smartphone buyers have a choice.. you'll lose all your appstore purchases when you switch and having repurchase everything is going to dissuade anyone from switching. Even for the first time buyers, if all their friends are on iMessage, they practically have to buy an iPhone.

Why would you need iMessages? I don't find it more useful than old school sms messaging. If you want secure messaging perhaps whatsup or signal are better options anyway.

It's much, much faster than sms. Many of my friends refuse to get whatsapp let alone signal.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#56

Post by criddell »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #36
lapdanz wrote: post #4

Apple will dominate the market until the market itself becomes irrelevant. Good news for Apple is that in the next 5 years I don’t see something in the horizon to challenge the market of smartphones.

There's definitely something: Google, Microsoft or Amazon launching a sub $300 smartphone and an ad campaign making fun of people spending a thousand dollars for nothing extra. It feels like FAAMG minus Google don't want to compete with each other on the consumer side.

It really feels like Google is losing interest in Android. What are the chances that they will sell it to somebody like Microsoft with the requirement that certain Google Services remain?

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#57

Post by acdha »

thefounder wrote: post #43
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't. Only first time smartphone buyers have a choice.. you'll lose all your appstore purchases when you switch and having repurchase everything is going to dissuade anyone from switching. Even for the first time buyers, if all their friends are on iMessage, they practically have to buy an iPhone.

Why would you need iMessages? I don't find it more useful than old school sms messaging. If you want secure messaging perhaps whatsup or signal are better options anyway.

It's more reliable and faster than SMS, removes the size limits, far more secure, and supports a lot of modern features (non-terrible media quality, received/read notifications, threading, app embeds, etc.)

Signal tries to offer that but isn't as polished. The Facebook services like WhatsApp are good and cross-platform but that involves trusting Facebook heavily.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#59

Post by mohanmcgeek »

thefounder wrote: post #43
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't. Only first time smartphone buyers have a choice.. you'll lose all your appstore purchases when you switch and having repurchase everything is going to dissuade anyone from switching. Even for the first time buyers, if all their friends are on iMessage, they practically have to buy an iPhone.

Why would you need iMessages? I don't find it more useful than old school sms messaging. If you want secure messaging perhaps whatsup or signal are better options anyway.

Network effect: Even if someone feels signal is better, they can't convince their whole group to start using signal.

I don't use an iPhone. This is the reason I heard from iphone users.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#60

Post by CJefferson »

acdha wrote: post #47
conductr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me there’s plenty of competition. Apple just consistently wins. Consumers are willing to pay more per device and it flows through to profit. The others are competing on price and their margins reflect it.

How many consumers are even paying more? iPhones start pretty cheap — not as low as the cheapest Android phones but they're starting with much better hardware and are supported considerably longer so this starts to feel more like Sam Vimes' boots[1] where someone buying cheap Android phones spends more than an iPhone SE over the service life. Flagship Android phones cost the same, often even more, than an iPhone desp…

When you say "not as low", the cheapest iPhone I can find looks like the SE, at 389 pounds. I can find multiple Android phones for 50 pounds -- that's nearly an eigth of the price.

I don't deny the SE is a better phone than a 50 pound phone, but it's also in an entirely different bracket -- I wouldn't give a 10 year old a nearly 400 pound iPhone, I'd give them a 50 pound Android, for example.

Post reply on HN