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

counterpointresearch.com

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

#171

Post by jollybean »

cs702 wrote: 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…

Low cost competitors generally only know how do do just that: make things cheaply. That's their competitive advantage, and they leverage it.

Apple is a marketing and tech company, and they're good at keeping prices up.

Both of them think they are doing better in the long-term.

There is no notion of 'sharing' etc. among the low cost competitors, if they could use some kind of IP-rights to hold out their competitors, they would.

That said, it should be noted that 'making stuff' is still where the bulk of the money is, even if it's not raw surplus.

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

#172

Post by gumby »

dhritzkiv wrote: post #75
cs702 wrote: 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)

I saw one in the flesh (a friend had one) and it was surprisingly good, I expected the screen to be crap but it was not. You could legitimately get a big screen on a device that fit in your pocket. It also has a screen on the “outside” so you can use it without opening it — as a convenience or to reduce the number of flexes of the screen?

The thing is, android tablets suck (I know, and it appears the market does too) so the experience of the larger screen is meh. I’m happy with a small phone when walking around and an iPad (or hell just a laptop) when I’m at home.

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

#173

Post by robocat »

Osiris wrote: post #167
cs702 wrote: 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…

Nearly all hand set manufactures outside if apple only make money on the device sale not on any app revenue. Are the numbers here broken down by hardware vs software profits? If not, it would seem obvious to me that Apple makes more because they can include all App Store profits after each device sale.

About 50% of Apple’s profits are from the App Store by my calculations[1], although Apple makes it hard to split out App Store profits versus handset profits[2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28638939

[2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-profitable-is-apples-a...

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

#174

Post by soneca »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #164

I would still buy a Windows phone, if it were available. :(

Same here. I still think the tiles interface with vertical scroll was the best one for phones. I don’t dislike either Android or iPhone, but I still miss my Windows phone.

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

#175

Post by gumby »

criddell wrote: post #20

I think one of the smartest things Apple did was open physical stores and not depend on carrier stores and Best Buy. I've often wondered why their competitors don't do the same thing? Why isn't there a Samsung store a block away from every Apple store? Having a physical location for purchases, repairs, and support is why I always recommend Apple devices when somebody who isn't super technical asks me what to buy. Mic…

Apple was derided when they started opening stores. Gateway had tried it and it killed the company. Dell tried it, but we’re killing it with the computers-by-mail business and it’s opportunities for financial engineering.

What did apple bring to the game? With a tired product line in a maturing market, the last thing they needed was another expensive effort in a domain they had no experience in (retail) while simultaneously killing their retail channel.

It’s my understanding that the popular understanding turned out not to be completely accurate.

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

#176

Post by gumby »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #160
newsclues wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stores also function as service centres. Lots of people only use the Apple store to get things fixed. The store is just a physical extension of apples drive to put the customer experience first.

> The store is just a physical extension of apples drive to put the customer experience first. They could learn a thing or two from Dell and Lenovo about repair turnarounds.

In The Olde Days you could schedule a return; when the fedex driver stopped by you could ask them to wait and pop your laptop into the box and hand it back, and have the repaired machine the next day. No more.

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

#177

Post by gumby »

criddell wrote: post #129
threatofrain wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say Microsoft was half-hearted, but their stores came closest to demoing the premium devices of the Windows ecosystem, whereas Samsung stores were actually pretty lame. I'm not surprised Samsung stopped their build-out.

> their stores came closest to demoing the premium devices of the Windows ecosystem That's true, but it was still a half-hearted effort.

The only time I ever saw people in them was after school when kids were playing Xbox.

I went in once because they weren’t crowded…to ask directions to the Apple store. I felt kinda bad but they were just standing around with no customers anyway. I did apologize, and I remember the person I asked being very nice.

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

#179

Post by BoorishBears »

soneca wrote: post #174
coreyp_1 wrote: post #164

I would still buy a Windows phone, if it were available. :(

Same here. I still think the tiles interface with vertical scroll was the best one for phones. I don’t dislike either Android or iPhone, but I still miss my Windows phone.

WebOS was the best interface and every other interface has spent the last decade slowly catching up.

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

#180

Post by b9a2cab5 »

azinman2 wrote: post #161
bane wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a discussion the other day how every other attempt at bringing computing to underdeveloped parts of the world has more or less failed (OLPC for example), yet cheap Android phones have managed to become ubiquitous in places without stable electricity, running water, and stable or repressive governments.

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!

More likely is that cell phones all have mobile data, whereas laptops have not historically had that except on high end business models. Devices are pretty useless to the average person without the internet, so in places with poor connectivity laptops end up being useless.
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