That growth was led by Apple and its blockbuster iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which captured the overwhelming majority of the industry’s profit. Android, meanwhile, was relegated to a record-low of 11 percent global smartphone profit share during the quarter.
Apple had 89 percent and Android took 11 percent. It’s hard to argue with numbers like that.
Doomed!
It would seem like most of the Android ecosystem is ghetto and suspect. I think Google is attempting to do a “good job” with their Play Store, though I think it is a bad name for the store, but I suppose there is no actual good name either.
I would even wager that parts of Android are making good money. I think some of the 3rd party “skins” and add-ons to Android might even be adding value at this point – to some, anyway, though I think the Nexus lines are pretty popular among some circles.
I wonder how the iOS jailbreak and unlocking community are doing… I know they are different, though do think it would be illegal for any company to “lock a phone” to a particular carrier. I mean there is a contract and that is a legal lock on the phone, but if or when someone travels they should be free to put their phone on any compatible carrier they feel is best (for price, speed, data caps or coverage).
It would also be nice if Apple could start building computers again.
Still loving my MacBook Air. Picking up a new iMac for family probably this weekend. Very good computers. Seems funny you didn’t notice.
If Microsoft and Google weren’t funneling money from other industries into the development of Android and Windows Phone, this could get real ugly for them real quick.
Uh? Apple’s about the only company making money in the old-fashioned computer business, too. It’s not that stark, but the numbers I saw had 56% of the profits to Apple vs. 44% shared among everyone else.
And the computers are still fantastic. If you’re waiting for an update to your favorite model, you need look no further than Intel, who seems to have forgotten how to make chips — and this could well be a precursor to Apple changing architectures again.
Apple, as of late, has been enjoying the fruits of playing the long game. Everyone else is a bitch to the shareholder weenies that focus on their quarterlies. The short game may be good for a quick bump, but they risk eroding consumer confidence. We’re seeing that play out now with Android products.
5 years after the original iPhone was introduced, we finally had some real contenders to put pressure on Apple’s dominance. But in the last two years, those contenders exploited their weak gains in an attempt to win market share, and in the process also inadvertently convinced their customers that their product, though cheaper and visually comparable, was ultimately inferior. Like a house of cards its crashing down. They gotta work harder on the foundational elements, and that won’t come mercifully.
Meanwhile, Apple has steadily built consumer confidence year after year since Jobs returned back in ’97. They focused first on making the customer happy, more than simply selling units. They doggedly developed evolutionary improvements for the customer ‘journey’. “The Devil is in the details,” and Apple has put huge emphasis on this where others have not. Shareholder weenies see this and think, “what a waste of money, where the hell are my insane quarterly profits”? Yet, the early true believers, benefitted huge, financially, while everyone else got to enjoy some of the best tech products humans have ever produced.
Apple has more than earned my respect. They’ve single-handedly changed how the game is played while their peers are still scratching their head wondering how they did it. Instead of focusing on quarterly shareholder, weenies, companies need to remember first and foremost that customers are suckers for a good, solid product, that’s fair in price, and “just works”.
I have to wonder how many of the Android enthusiasts who only focus on the newest, highest-end devices actually realize they don’t constitute the majority of Android users.
Yeah, I run every single aspect of my design business from my Macbook Air, and have never hit any limitations in what I can do.
But I only wish it was a “real computer”, instead of a fake one. Oh well.
Seriously, your post contains a lot of stupid. By “real computers” I assume you mean massive boxes with 50 cables coming our from them? Yeah, the market for hose is just massive and lucrative.
Precisely. Every feature they’ve added to their devices has never been as a gimmick or bullet point, but something that has been carefully, methodically considered, developed for years, and implemented in a way that enhances the entire ecosystem and has a clear path forward. There’s dozens of examples one can list in recent years, whether it’s Swift, Metal, Touch ID, Apple Pay, the secure enclave, A chip series, etc- these are all monumental aspects that did not provide quick results, bt enhanced the foundations of Apple’s platform for long term returns.
great article about this winning strategy:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/
First non-sports 3-pager I bothered to read in a long time.
Excellent. Steve Denning also wrote a good follow-up to that, which I found by accident.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/06/17/why-the-worlds-dumbest-idea-is-finally-dying/