Verizon Seen Owing Apple Up to $14 Billion for IPhones

[bigsnake49]

They do, but they're definitely not for the average consumer. I also don't quite see what this has to do with this thread..

 

It will take too long to explain. Suffice to say it was all tongue in cheek.

Edited July 18, 2013 by bigsnake49

[koiulpoi]

It will take too long to explain. Suffice to say it was all tongue to cheek.

Oh? Don't worry, I've got all the time in the world.

[dstar2002]

After all my cherry picked reading, I don't understand how Android has a larger market share, while at the same time having 1/3 the activations. Android didn't start out high and iPhone blew it away, it was most definitely the other way around.

 

2 years ago I knew people who would leave Android for iPhone. Now, present day, all my iPhone friends are asking me what Android they should buy.

 

The iPhone is dying. It needs a major overhaul to compete. Face it. Apple lives on its ipad now for the mobile user. I myself enjoy my android phone and ipad.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[WiWavelength]

Oh? Don't worry, I've got all the time in the world.

 

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

"My friends" is completely anecdotal.

 

In reality, the focus on market share is too great and not enough focus is on total unit share and profit share.

 

Apple's total unit share is still growing, albeit not as fast as Android's.

[bigsnake49]

After all my cherry picked reading, I don't understand how Android has a larger market share, while at the same time having 1/3 the activations. Android didn't start out high and iPhone blew it away, it was most definitely the other way around.

 

2 years ago I knew people who would leave Android for iPhone. Now, present day, all my iPhone friends are asking me what Android they should buy.

 

The iPhone is dying. It needs a major overhaul to compete. Face it. Apple lives on its ipad now for the mobile user. I myself enjoy my android phone and ipad.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Let's wait for Apple's 2nd quarter results, shall we? Actually let's wait for couple of quarters after they introduce their low cost iPhone which I thought they should have done couple of years ago.

AT&T is traditionally more Apple-centric and I don't think they have released their results.

[bigsnake49]

Apple's problem and to some extent Samsung's problem is that the 4S is good enough for most people. So for people with a 4S on HSPA+ networks there's less incentive to upgrade than for people on CDMA networks that want to upgrade to an LTE network supporting phone. The phones are plenty speedy enough and stylish. The only thing left to "innovate" is to stuff more pixels behind a crappy lens.

 

Yes people will upgrade to a 5S because it's the latest and greatest for $199. But there are people like me that won't. We will keep our 2-3 generation old phone because it's good enough. And we might take our 4S or whatever the Android equivalent is, to prepaid networks.

Edited July 21, 2013 by lilotimz

[xenadu]

After all my cherry picked reading, I don't understand how Android has a larger market share, while at the same time having 1/3 the activations. Android didn't start out high and iPhone blew it away, it was most definitely the other way around. 2 years ago I knew people who would leave Android for iPhone. Now, present day, all my iPhone friends are asking me what Android they should buy. The iPhone is dying. It needs a major overhaul to compete. Face it. Apple lives on its ipad now for the mobile user. I myself enjoy my android phone and ipad.Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

The iPhone has never really competed with Android directly for customers. They both simply consumed the entire feature phone, blackberry, and windows phone market... A process that continues. Android passed the iPhone because almost every new phone at every carrier that wasn't an iPhone was some cheap, low-powered Android clone. There are two markets... The high-end where the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 compete. Some smaller percentage of this market cares about CPU performance, customization, or whatever.

 

The majority of the market just walks into the store and takes whatever the carrier hands them, complete with advertisements, pre installed crapware, and shitty skins. For half of these customers the phone might as well be a feature phone because they don't give a crap. Part of the reason Apple insists on these deals is to stop the carriers from steering people away from the iPhone, especially given all the rebates and marketing incentives Samsung passes out... A year ago they were basically paying carriers 100-200 per phone to shill their devices. I won't cry any tears for Verizon if they don't meet the quota due to taking Samsung kickbacks to push people away from iPhones, and that's also the reason Apple won't give them an inch on the contract.

 

 

A few other tidbits: Half the US doesn't have a smartphone yet. That's a lot of customers. The iPhone activations have been moving the needle... The iPhone isn't half the smartphone install base yet but it continues to creep closer and closer. The iPhone is stickier... More people that switch to an iPhone will continue to upgrade to an iPhone, so net switchers accumulates customers to Apple. There is still a lot of room for growth but at some point in the next three years we will be switching to an entirely upgrade-based market. At that point, if the stickiness holds, the iPhone will begin stealing Android marketshare. Those are a lot of IFs though, no one really knows what will happen between now and then.

 

 

 

And to your point, the iPhone isn't dying. It continues to grow marketshare as a percentage and total install base. It continues to be the majority of mobile web traffic, majority of App Store revenue and developer attention, and gobbles up almost 60% of global mobile profits, while only holding 8% marketshare. If that's dying, we should all be so lucky.

[dstar2002]

Care to post your links on that?  Then compare ipad vs iphone.  Show me where your figures come from.

[xenadu]

Care to post your links on that?  Then compare ipad vs iphone.  Show me where your figures come from.

 

Sure:

 

"Samsung’s Radio City Music Hall launch of its Galaxy S IV smartphone made good headlines, but consumer buying data shows that at the checkout counter, Apple continues to eat Samsung’s lunch. Apple’s “black hole” ecosystem captures subscribers who never leave, while Android smartphones are losing one out of every six customers to other manufacturers. These trends will drive Apple ownership well past Android ownership by 2015 and will reinforce Apple’s dominance in tablets as well."

http://www.yankeegroup.com/ResearchDocument.do?id=60321

 

And asymco's take on the above:

http://www.asymco.com/2013/05/05/platform-churn/

 

US mobile platform share:

"The latest comScore US smartphone install base data is in and there are few surprises. iPhone has reached a new record high penetration (39.2%) and user base (54.3 million). Android has reached a new high in user base (72 million) but share at 52% is below the peak reached in November 2012 This pattern of gradual iPhone share gain in the US has been consistent for over two years even while Android has catapulted into an overall lead. The surprising thing is how Android seems to have peaked in share. There are still 95 million non-smartphone users and there seems to be headroom for growth even though the other platforms have been tapped out. But it does not seem that Android phones have any particular advantage over iPhone. My hypothesis remains that as price is taken out as a differentiation, the adoption of iOS is slightly higher than Android."

http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/05/measuring-us-mobile-platform-shares-kantar-vs-comscore/

 

 

And his response to the dumb meme that everyone already has a smartphone:

"says UBS analyst John Hodulik, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

No they haven’t.

According to the latest comScore survey data, 98 million Americans above the age of 13 don’t use a smartphone as their primary phone. That’s 41% of US mobile phone users.

What’s more, 2.5 million more people first started using smartphones in the three month period ending May vs. the three month period ending in April."

http://www.asymco.com/2013/07/17/everybody-has-got-a-smartphone/

 

 

Lots of pretty graphs and whatnot to be found at the links above, but here is just one. Note the box in the upper-right, showing how up until this point iPhone and Android have basically squeezed everyone else out of the market:

[dstar2002]

One thing of note from the asymco information: Replacement sales are not accounted for.  So does this mean they account for someone ditching iphone and going to android?  I dont think it does.  And same the other way around.

 

I take a look at this: http://bgr.com/2013/05/14/samsung-smartphone-sales-q1-2013/

 

Which leads to this: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2482816

And this line speciffically: “Apple is faced with the challenge of being increasingly dependent on the replacement market as its addressable market is capped. The next two quarters will also be challenging, as there are no new products are expected to be coming before the third quarter of 2013,” said Mr. Gupta.

 

So then I reviewed: http://9to5mac.com/2013/05/30/ipad-sales-grew-three-times-faster-than-the-iphone/

Showing, what my thought was, and that ipad overall is pushing its total units being moved higher and higher, out pacing iphone.

 

Adding that all up, tells me Android is killing it in the phone arena, and ipad is killing it in the tablet arena.  iphone might have its place still in the market share, and i should of been more specific, the iphone as we know it is dying.  They need more variety, more option, or it will eventually die.  You either adapt, or you die.  Its simple business.  I would be shocked if we never see anything more than 1 version of iphone.  I think you will start to see iphone models of varying degrees, with large screens, small screens, consumer specs, "geek" specs and all the in betweens (android like variety)

 

When Apple makes that adaptation, and they will, then, I would anticipate iphone to make a move up again.

[xenadu]

One thing of note from the asymco information: Replacement sales are not accounted for.  So does this mean they account for someone ditching iphone and going to android?  I dont think it does.  And same the other way around.

 

I take a look at this: http://bgr.com/2013/05/14/samsung-smartphone-sales-q1-2013/

 

Which leads to this: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2482816

And this line speciffically: “Apple is faced with the challenge of being increasingly dependent on the replacement market as its addressable market is capped. The next two quarters will also be challenging, as there are no new products are expected to be coming before the third quarter of 2013,” said Mr. Gupta.

 

So then I reviewed: http://9to5mac.com/2013/05/30/ipad-sales-grew-three-times-faster-than-the-iphone/

Showing, what my thought was, and that ipad overall is pushing its total units being moved higher and higher, out pacing iphone.

 

Adding that all up, tells me Android is killing it in the phone arena, and ipad is killing it in the tablet arena.  iphone might have its place still in the market share, and i should of been more specific, the iphone as we know it is dying.  They need more variety, more option, or it will eventually die.  You either adapt, or you die.  Its simple business.  I would be shocked if we never see anything more than 1 version of iphone.  I think you will start to see iphone models of varying degrees, with large screens, small screens, consumer specs, "geek" specs and all the in betweens (android like variety)

 

When Apple makes that adaptation, and they will, then, I would anticipate iphone to make a move up again.

 

None of those links support the assertion that the iPhone is dying. In fact if you read closer, Samsung and local chinese companies are grabbing marketshare by making non-3G capable phones that are ultra-cheap! Those phones have almost no profit in them. I doubt Apple will ever address that market segment. They may move to a two form-factor setup or release a cheaper iPhone... they certainly moved that direction with the iPod and now iPad. More to the point, the iPhone continues to increase its marketshare as I pointed out in my earlier post (and so does Samsung).

 

 

You can't just talk about Android anyway. As far as sales go, Samsung *is* the Android market so it would be more appropriate to say that Samsung is leading in marketshare by playing across the ultra-cheap, medium, and high-end categories while Apple takes the majority of global handset profit by focusing only on the high-end. In China, none of them can beat the home-grown 2.5G el-cheap-o specials and they'd be lucky to make $5 per sale if they bothered, so in terms of size China may nominally surpass the US soon but in reality the "addressable" market will remain smaller for some time. Almost every US customer can afford the iPhone 4S or Samsung S3, the same cannot be said of China (or India for that matter).

 

 

What interests me is how long Google will sit back watching their ad revenue shrink as Samsung takes all the profit Android manages to produce and who will move first... Samsung forking Android to make their own custom OS or Google getting serious with Motorola and undercutting their partners (possibly even making future updates closed-source Motorola-only). Google's recent numbers have got to have the wheels turning in several heads right now. For that matter, how long will LG, HTC, and the other also-rans keep trucking with Android since they can't differentiate from Samsung besides more horrible skins and dialers. 

 

 

 

To get more on-topic, with half of Verizon activations being iPhones I don't think they will have a problem meeting their purchase commitment. Sprint also seems on-track to meet theirs. 

[S4GRU]

I've not seen anything that says that the iPhone is dying. Sometimes they lose some market share, sometimes they gain. They are a strong and dominating player in the smartphone OS duopoly. No one should want Android to take over too much market share.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[bigsnake49]

Slightly OT is the utter failure of the Surface RT tablet. We will see how successful Surface Pro is.

[dstar2002]

Looks like iPhone has dipped again, to a 3 year low, with Samsung doubling shipments over apple.

 

http://tinyurl.com/o38hdgv (courtesy engadget)

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[xenadu]

Looks like iPhone has dipped again, to a 3 year low, with Samsung doubling shipments over apple.

 

http://tinyurl.com/o38hdgv (courtesy engadget)

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Sigh... same old, same old. I'm not going to address this tiring stuff again. Yes, Samsung's entire lineup of 60+ odd models (13 on Sprint in the US alone) sell more units than Apple's lineup of 3 models. Absolutely true and it has been true since Apple released the iPhone (though it wasn't always Samsung selling more units). 

 

 

 

I want to address something else... the inaccurate reporting that crap journalists love to run with. You may have seen the headlines that Samsung's profit surpassed Apple's this past quarter... except it is entirely untrue and the original sloppy article was pulled, but the original story is still bouncing around. 

 

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/27/samsung-has-not-dethroned-apple-in-mobile-profits

 

 

"Apple is earning greater operating profits than all of Samsung Electronics, despite the fact that Samsung operates across a lot of other businesses. Apple sets aside more for taxes, so its reported net profit is slightly but not significantly lower, at least in the current currency exchange.

 

A Google search for the original, incorrect headline "Samsung Made $1.43 Billion More In Profit Than Apple Last Quarter " returns 6,650 results. Some of those syndicated reports have been corrected, including those by the San Francisco Chronicle and Yahoo Finance. Many other blog entires have not, such as this one byCult of Android.

 

Even the corrected version still mixes up "net profit" for "operational profit," and says that Samsung doesn't report net profit (the company does, as shown above). 

 

A report by CNET described Samsung's IM earnings as its "mobile business," obscuring the reality that this group, even its "mobile" subgroup that excludes networking sales, also sells all of Samsung's PCs and tablets.

 

That report noted that IM accounts for about two thirds of Samsung Electronics' revenue, and had declined by 3.5 percent over the previous quarter. That decline occured despite the fact that Samsung had launched its new flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone in April. In contrast, Apple's sales for the quarter represented the third quarter of its iPhone 5 flagship."

 

 

 

You can read the rest of the article but I wanted to point out that most "journalists" these days have an agenda and they are looking for anything to report that confirms the existing narrative. Apple doubles this effect because it has always made people lose their minds. The current Apple narrative is that the company is imploding and worth less than Dell, depsite the fact that they just spent the entire market cap of Nokia and Dell to repurchase shares using excess cash. Tech journalists are also desperate to report on something, anything, new regardless of whether it is needed or useful... oh and the obsession about specs like processor speed that can't be directly compared between different SoCs anyway.

 

 

Short version: don't take the "news" you read too seriously.

[shockerengr]

I've not seen anything that says that the iPhone is dying. Sometimes they lose some market share, sometimes they gain. They are a strong and dominating player in the smartphone OS duopoly. No one should want Android to take over too much market share.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

True, but I'd also not like to see Apple maintain market share while making few if any changes.

 

It's best if there's vibrant innovation - something that for all the marketing power of apple, I haven't felt there's been much of.  A bit of sagging market share may spur them to break out from what's comfortable.