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The only reasonable answer to you is: No, of course I won't try to justify why market share is a meaningful metric, and I particularly won't try to justify why

The only reasonable answer to you is: No, of course I won't try to justify why market share is a meaningful metric, and I particularly won't try to justify why this utterly standard metric is meaningful in the context of someone coming up with a ridiculous vanity metric and asserting that it has some value utterly divorced from any argumentation. But what the hell, I'm feeling unreasonable today: Market share is meaningful because it demonstrates the size of the market that Apple could potentially reach. Market share is meaningful because if Apple's market share falls below a critical percentage, people will not target the iPhone for app development (as happened with the Mac and is currently happening with, say, Windows Phone).

ghaff 11y ago
In the case of app development targeting, I'd agree that Apple's market share is probably more important than Apple's profit share. However, the most relevant metric is probably iOS share of wallet vs. other mobile OSs. $MOBILE_OS can have an arbitrarily large market share but if people don't pay for apps on it, it's not going to be very interesting to app developers. That said, market share is, of course, at least one of the relevant metrics but the market needs to be defined. Companies don't typically target the largest theoretically possible market for their products. They target a subset for a variety of reasons.
- aetherson 11y ago
  I think that's a slightly dated view. I don't think that the app market is mainly defined by "I'll pay $1 for an app" anymore. In a few fields, perhaps. But the most important apps are at this point free ones, and their users are monetized in other ways.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    In-app payments and other forms of monetization are still monetization that require users to pay money. That said, I agree there's a balancing act. If a hypothetical "luxury smartphone" had a tiny market share, it wouldn't be an attractive development target in general even if its buyers spent a lot of money on certain types of apps. But the iPhone isn't really in that position. Certainly, it seems to have no trouble attracting developers and companies creating apps to target travel, subscription, and other services.
    - aetherson 11y ago
      There are plenty of forms of monetization that don't require users to pay money (ad supported being the obvious one), and there are even more forms of monetization that require the users to pay money, but not pay money for an app (think Uber or Grubhub), and while it does seem to be the case that Android users are less likely to pay money for an app than iPhone users, I'm not aware of any sign that they are less likely to pay for a physical good or physical service through an app. But clearly iPhone is not in that position, I agree!
      - alwillis 11y ago
        and while it does seem to be the case that Android users are less likely to pay money for an app than iPhone users, I'm not aware of any sign that they are less likely to pay for a physical good or physical service through an app. You mean like last year's holiday shopping numbers? From "Apple's iOS Has Once Again Decimated Android When It Comes To Data That Matters": http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-android-shopping-data-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-android-shopping-data-201... >Adobe, which is tracking online shopping, reports the following: "iOS users drove four times as much mobile sales revenue as Android users, 79 and 21 percent respectively."
        ghaff 11y ago
        I think parent's point was about free apps that are just access points to a physical world service like airlines, hotels, Uber, Yelp, OpenTable, etc. I do suspect iPhone users spend more per capita generally because they're probably a wealthier demographic than Android. But I also suspect that overall marketshare is more relevant to the companies developing the apps in this case. (It's also somewhat beside the point though because everyone in this position is going to have an iOS and an Android app at a minumum.)
  - alwillis 11y ago
    I think that's a slightly dated view. I don't think that the app market is mainly defined by "I'll pay $1 for an app" anymore. In a few fields, perhaps. But the most important apps are at this point free ones, and their users are monetized in other ways. Except the data says differently. From the transcript of the conference call: >The App Store set new all-time quarterly records for both the number of transacting customers and overall revenue. The strong performance of the App Store helped fuel 1.5 billion dollars in services revenue, also an all-time record.
MaysonL 11y ago
The relevant market would seem to be the handset market. Hasn't Apple's share of that been growing? It sure hasn't dropped much, if at all, while they've ramped production faster and higher than any product in history.
oldmanjay 11y ago
Just so we are clear, you mainly reasserted your opinions and gave a hypothetical about a market erosion that Apple clearly isn't in, given the fact that their absolute sales have risen. I remain unconvinced.

ghaff 11y ago

In the case of app development targeting, I'd agree that Apple's market share is probably more important than Apple's profit share. However, the most relevant metric is probably iOS share of wallet vs. other mobile OSs. $MOBILE_OS can have an arbitrarily large market share but if people don't pay for apps on it, it's not going to be very interesting to app developers. That said, market share is, of course, at least one of the relevant metrics but the market needs to be defined. Companies don't typically target the largest theoretically possible market for their products. They target a subset for a variety of reasons.

aetherson 11y ago
I think that's a slightly dated view. I don't think that the app market is mainly defined by "I'll pay $1 for an app" anymore. In a few fields, perhaps. But the most important apps are at this point free ones, and their users are monetized in other ways.
- ghaff 11y ago
  In-app payments and other forms of monetization are still monetization that require users to pay money. That said, I agree there's a balancing act. If a hypothetical "luxury smartphone" had a tiny market share, it wouldn't be an attractive development target in general even if its buyers spent a lot of money on certain types of apps. But the iPhone isn't really in that position. Certainly, it seems to have no trouble attracting developers and companies creating apps to target travel, subscription, and other services.
  - aetherson 11y ago
    There are plenty of forms of monetization that don't require users to pay money (ad supported being the obvious one), and there are even more forms of monetization that require the users to pay money, but not pay money for an app (think Uber or Grubhub), and while it does seem to be the case that Android users are less likely to pay money for an app than iPhone users, I'm not aware of any sign that they are less likely to pay for a physical good or physical service through an app. But clearly iPhone is not in that position, I agree!
    - alwillis 11y ago
      and while it does seem to be the case that Android users are less likely to pay money for an app than iPhone users, I'm not aware of any sign that they are less likely to pay for a physical good or physical service through an app. You mean like last year's holiday shopping numbers? From "Apple's iOS Has Once Again Decimated Android When It Comes To Data That Matters": http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-android-shopping-data-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-android-shopping-data-201... >Adobe, which is tracking online shopping, reports the following: "iOS users drove four times as much mobile sales revenue as Android users, 79 and 21 percent respectively."
      - ghaff 11y ago
        I think parent's point was about free apps that are just access points to a physical world service like airlines, hotels, Uber, Yelp, OpenTable, etc. I do suspect iPhone users spend more per capita generally because they're probably a wealthier demographic than Android. But I also suspect that overall marketshare is more relevant to the companies developing the apps in this case. (It's also somewhat beside the point though because everyone in this position is going to have an iOS and an Android app at a minumum.)
- alwillis 11y ago
  I think that's a slightly dated view. I don't think that the app market is mainly defined by "I'll pay $1 for an app" anymore. In a few fields, perhaps. But the most important apps are at this point free ones, and their users are monetized in other ways. Except the data says differently. From the transcript of the conference call: >The App Store set new all-time quarterly records for both the number of transacting customers and overall revenue. The strong performance of the App Store helped fuel 1.5 billion dollars in services revenue, also an all-time record.

MaysonL 11y ago

The relevant market would seem to be the handset market. Hasn't Apple's share of that been growing? It sure hasn't dropped much, if at all, while they've ramped production faster and higher than any product in history.

oldmanjay 11y ago

Just so we are clear, you mainly reasserted your opinions and gave a hypothetical about a market erosion that Apple clearly isn't in, given the fact that their absolute sales have risen. I remain unconvinced.