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

There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–28 of 28 posts

Re: There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

#21

Post by joelrunyon »

justincormack wrote: post #16
nirvana wrote: post #9

Its interesting that this number, 400k per day, is significantly less than the 700k per day that Google has recently claimed to be activating. Yet at the same time, the iPhone is %55 of Verizon's sales, and the iPhone is not the only iOS device, with the iPod touch doing pretty well (7M last quarter) and the iPad having essentially no competition and growing around %100 a year. To me, this implies that a very large n…

There seems to be a higher ratio of Android to Apple phones in non English speaking countries. I wonder if it is largely the Apple marketing machine not so geared up. I think the smartphone upgrade is pretty universal in richer countries.

I bet it's the cost factor. I know tons of people in the developing world that don't always have electricity, but they have smart phones.

Re: There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

#22

Post by joelrunyon »

nirvana wrote: post #9

Its interesting that this number, 400k per day, is significantly less than the 700k per day that Google has recently claimed to be activating. Yet at the same time, the iPhone is %55 of Verizon's sales, and the iPhone is not the only iOS device, with the iPod touch doing pretty well (7M last quarter) and the iPad having essentially no competition and growing around %100 a year. To me, this implies that a very large n…

Activations would still be disimilar to sales because Apple profits both from the sale of the hardware, but if I remember correctly, they also are cut part of the recurring contract revenue (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm not sure how Google ends up making their money off Android (other than it allowing them a much-need and very good-sized footprint in the mobile market). While they might get some cut of the phone contract, they don't get the profit from the hardware side, which like most Apple devices is very profitable.

Re: There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

#23

Post by schraeds »

fpp wrote: post #19
nirvana wrote: post #9

Its interesting that this number, 400k per day, is significantly less than the 700k per day that Google has recently claimed to be activating. Yet at the same time, the iPhone is %55 of Verizon's sales, and the iPhone is not the only iOS device, with the iPod touch doing pretty well (7M last quarter) and the iPad having essentially no competition and growing around %100 a year. To me, this implies that a very large n…

I believe, besides the great success that Apple has with its mobile devices, the most interesting here are the enormous sums the mobile carriers are spending to subsidize this growth - up to US$300 per device. This is certainly not something they can sustain much longer at these levels and also cross-sponsoring Apple devices by all their other phones (mostly Android) will not stretch this much further. I guess we've…

The average contract revenue for an iPhone user is around $2,000 ($100x24 months, give or take).

The average subsidy for iPhones is more like $450 per phone (thus the Apple unlocked price of $600+ for unsubsidized phones).

15% of contract value to subsidize the hardware doesn't seem that bad. I wonder how much cable companies pay for set-top boxes, Vonage with free VOIP adapters, etc.

Re: There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

#24

Post by mediocre_coder »

schraeds wrote: post #23
fpp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe, besides the great success that Apple has with its mobile devices, the most interesting here are the enormous sums the mobile carriers are spending to subsidize this growth - up to US$300 per device. This is certainly not something they can sustain much longer at these levels and also cross-sponsoring Apple devices by all their other phones (mostly Android) will not stretch this much further. I guess we've…

The average contract revenue for an iPhone user is around $2,000 ($100x24 months, give or take). The average subsidy for iPhones is more like $450 per phone (thus the Apple unlocked price of $600+ for unsubsidized phones). 15% of contract value to subsidize the hardware doesn't seem that bad. I wonder how much cable companies pay for set-top boxes, Vonage with free VOIP adapters, etc.

I worked on digital set-top boxes about 10 years ago, at which point they cost ~ $800 per unit. I'm sure that's declined to $2-300 by now, but cable co's were recouping at $800/unit with expected lifespans of ~ 5 years.

Re: There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

#25

Post by just_browsing »

schraeds wrote: post #23
fpp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe, besides the great success that Apple has with its mobile devices, the most interesting here are the enormous sums the mobile carriers are spending to subsidize this growth - up to US$300 per device. This is certainly not something they can sustain much longer at these levels and also cross-sponsoring Apple devices by all their other phones (mostly Android) will not stretch this much further. I guess we've…

The average contract revenue for an iPhone user is around $2,000 ($100x24 months, give or take). The average subsidy for iPhones is more like $450 per phone (thus the Apple unlocked price of $600+ for unsubsidized phones). 15% of contract value to subsidize the hardware doesn't seem that bad. I wonder how much cable companies pay for set-top boxes, Vonage with free VOIP adapters, etc.

Digital STBs were around $800 a decade ago, and have probably declined to a couple hundred dollars at this point. The cable companies didn't have any trouble recouping on them, they just tied the high end boxes to high-end plans (e.g. HD only, back in the early 2000s when not everyone had HD).

It strikes me as remarkably parallel to how the phone companies are handling smartphones today, bundling them with premium-level services.

Re: There are now more iPhones sold than babies born in the world every day

#26

Post by drucken »

joelrunyon wrote: post #21
justincormack wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a higher ratio of Android to Apple phones in non English speaking countries. I wonder if it is largely the Apple marketing machine not so geared up. I think the smartphone upgrade is pretty universal in richer countries.

I bet it's the cost factor. I know tons of people in the developing world that don't always have electricity, but they have smart phones.

In continental Europe, Samsung Galaxy and other Android phones are not only more popular than Apple but are increasing in popularity.

I think its a combination of Apple's control over carriers including distribution and marketing, cost, range of phones and cannibalization of Nokia's share by Android, in that order.

Also, everyone has moved to smartphones. For many they just want to upgrade an existing phone. Even parents when they buy phones for their kids would buy smartphones and these will inevitably be Android on mainly cost and choice.

Post reply on HN