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

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

#221
post #169

As others have said, Apple does this with only 13% share. The important point is Apple has to make money selling phones, that is their business model. Android's is making money in a number of other ways, mainly user's data.

Apple absolutely doesn't HAVE to make money on the hardware, they could sell them at a loss and still rake in billions thanks to the AppStore.

Services (App store, Music, TV, ...) accounted for 21% of revenue last quarter. The rest is hardware. App store is some fraction of that 17 billion services revenue. Hardware was 64 billion. So yes they could make billions in services, but it pales in comparison to their hardware revenue. Also, services revenue doesn't happen without selling a huge amount of hardware first, and building the ecosystem, ... All of that had to happen for years before services revenue started to become significant.

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

#222
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale is the easiest way to make something cheap, and having a device targeted at every human rather than just school kids is going to be the best way to achieve scale. But as far as education goes, phones aren’t as good as a laptop as far as form factor. But better than nothing I suppose!

You can get a usb-c hub for 10$ with hdmi and usb ports. That's essentially a desktop computer from the early 2010s in even the weakest Android phones. More than enough to develop web apps on, I think a kid in Kenya was able to develop an entire website on a feature phone. Samsung is trying to push Dex , so we'll see. It is worth noting many cheaper phones don't support HDMI out, but you could still figure out a way…

Yes there is an interview with that feature phone guy on Hanselminutes podcast.

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

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but your comment made me laugh. Apple (a company that never publishes or leads with their tech specs) would be the biggest loser if Huawei stayed in the market. That Huawei that never reached 2% (or even 1%) mobile marketshare in the US

Apple has never reached double digits in term of desktop market share, but that hasn't stopped them from releasing a new Macbook every year.

Actually if it wasn't for Microsoft they wouldn't be shipping those phones and MacBooks now.

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

#224
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect it’s more about the competition than those companies willingly leaving that level of profit on the table. In the android market, people have the option of switching to a competitor if you’re not price competitive yourself. For IOS, apple is the only game in town on hardware.

Maybe. I'm not so sure. In theory , a company like, say, Samsung could stop making cheaper, money-losing phones and invest primarily on making increasingly better, premium, profitable phones like the Galaxy Fold, but they choose not to do that, year after year.

Having a spectrum of phones helps sell the premium phones. If you decide to buy a premium phone to replace your current phone, and you're happy with the one you have, you may shop the same brand. Without the lower end phones, you won't get those customers.

Windows Mobile 10 was a trainwreck for a lot of reasons, but Microsoft only sold upper mid tier and premium phones for it, and the sales numbers were terrible. If they had commited to low end phones (which they did well for WP7 and WP8), it might have gone differently. (Of course, that would have required a much more polished OS release)

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t buy the lock in argument. Not because it’s false but because every thing has lock in to some extent. It’s just user preference, taste, and familiarity are stronger than losing app purchases. People used to completely repurchase their music collection every 10 years or so. Albums, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc. They value reliably that Apple is known for and the risk of changing and not liking another platform…

What are the conditions that should be fulfilled for you to see that there's competition in the market? For me, it's the existence of a player that can squeeze the margin for others. With only seller giving people access to iMessage and app store, I don't see this condition fulfilled. Even if there is a well made phone that offers better utility for half the price, most users would just wait for iPhone to catch up ra…

> For me, it's the existence of a player that can squeeze the margin for others.

So you’re segmenting luxury phone market and saying Apple has no competition in that space except Samsung and others have tried for years to make luxury phones. iPhone users do not want them and it’s primarily due to preference. They don’t want to have to learn another os, they don’t like the look/feel, they don’t get a test drive option, etc. I just believe that’s their personal risk assessment that Apple benefits from but it’s not lock in because I just don’t think people really give a shit about iMessage that much. I have to believe the true perfect competitor you want them to have will have an acceptable solution as well.

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

#226
post #224
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I'm not so sure. In theory , a company like, say, Samsung could stop making cheaper, money-losing phones and invest primarily on making increasingly better, premium, profitable phones like the Galaxy Fold, but they choose not to do that, year after year.

Having a spectrum of phones helps sell the premium phones. If you decide to buy a premium phone to replace your current phone, and you're happy with the one you have, you may shop the same brand. Without the lower end phones, you won't get those customers. Windows Mobile 10 was a trainwreck for a lot of reasons, but Microsoft only sold upper mid tier and premium phones for it, and the sales numbers were terrible. If…

IIRC cheap Lumia was also sold packed in blister pack, but still not succeeded.

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

#227
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I'm not so sure. In theory , a company like, say, Samsung could stop making cheaper, money-losing phones and invest primarily on making increasingly better, premium, profitable phones like the Galaxy Fold, but they choose not to do that, year after year.

Do people want the Fold? (No snark - genuinely asking)

Folding tech/gimmick itself isn't what people want (I believe). It makes possible tablet can be folded so fit on my pocket. There's no switching cost from smartphone to tablet. It changes my digital life. I no longer use narrower smartphone to read web/books in everywhere.

Personally I don't know how Flip3 useful, but it seems to sold well, maybe cool for some people.

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

#228
post #18

...with only a 13% share of units. That is, all other vendors together sold 87% of units, but earned only a combined 25% of industry-wide profit. The vast majority of those other vendors are companies headquartered in Asian countries with a long history of promoting market share, access to information, and knowledge transfer at the expense of short-term profit. They might be making less money willingly to grow/mainta…

In the US their unit share is now greater than 50%. It's too bad that they're taking all of our money and not exporting much. And for a country that loves "freedom" so much, it's also too bad that we don't make Apple sell us devices that we can actually own and control, by simply voting with our dollars.

iPhone is also sold well in Japan. Market share is a bit decreased but still about 40-50%. Take our money!

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

#229
post #32

I think we might be missing the big picture here. Apple captures 75% of the profit from handset market share. The rest is split between high end Android devices from say Samsung and low-end commodity Shanzhan android devices. But in the Android sphere Google is clearly capturing the profits from Android devices on software. https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generate... In addition to profits, Google…

This is an excellent point. If "operating profit" also includes app store revenues, payment revenues (remember, Apple requires apps use their payment platform), and content revenues, the likes of Samsung, et al, are at a serious disadvantage and can only compete on device margins as they can't tap into any of those revenue streams.

Also Samsung has Galaxy Store, but maybe not much contributed to profit.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but your comment made me laugh. Apple (a company that never publishes or leads with their tech specs) would be the biggest loser if Huawei stayed in the market. That Huawei that never reached 2% (or even 1%) mobile marketshare in the US

Apple has never reached double digits in term of desktop market share, but that hasn't stopped them from releasing a new Macbook every year.

Apple's desktop market share is actually 15% world wide [0] and 27% in the US [1].

[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-st...

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