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Apple was overtaken by Huawei in global smartphone sales
- some_account 8y agoThey are also making great laptops with the Matebook X Pro. I think we will see a lot of really good tech from them going forward. All while Apple is putting out laptops that people don't want.
- scarface74 8y agoAccording to thier latest quarterly results - at least a few million want them.
- mkirklions 8y agoIve talked to a few of those million people. They dont know what they want.
- doctorwho 8y agoApple looks strong because their price per unit i.e. the "stupid" tax they make you pay on all their products is astronomically high. The actual demand and shipping volumes for their laptops has never set any records and the iPhone is sucking air now too. Their current lineup of products is mediocre at best when compared with what other companies are coming up with. Their biggest "innovations" lately are the touch bar (loser), removing useful ports/features that people like/love and dark mode. Really? Apple is the DeLorean of tech.
- scarface74 8y agoSo if millions of people are choosing to spend thier money on Apple products, is it possible that thier opinions and priorities may be different than yours? BTW, all you have to do is look st their quarterly results and see what their volume of iPhone and iPad sales were year over year to see that neither is “sucking wind”.
- iainmerrick 8y agoI think it’s fair to say the iPad is still relatively weak (relative to the phenomenal success of the iPhone, anyway). Unit sales have been flat for a while and revenue is down 5%.
- djrogers 8y ago> I think it’s fair to say the iPad is still relatively weak (relative to the phenomenal success of the iPhone, anyway). By that standard so is literally every consumer product ever created. Take the comparison out of the picture though, and The iPad alone is a solid Fortune 500 company that didn’t even exist 9 years ago.
- scarface74 8y agoEverything in the consumer electronics industry is relatively weak compared to the success of the iPhone...
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI'm anxiously awaiting reports of their laptops' Linux compatibilities.
- riku_iki 8y agoIt is by number of units sold, not revenue, and with Samsung at first place.
- mkirklions 8y agoAbout to post dirty words that seemingly get me downvotes dispite HN being a place for discussion... I find samsung quality medium at best. They charge top of the line prices and have really bright phones and TVs... However their hardware has broken multiple times and their smart TVs are annoying slow for something you pay 1,000 USD for. (my grandpa bought said TV) Then Apple, oh boy, either Apple has a marketing team that patrols HN or they have rabid fanboys. It is never good for consumers or developers to have proprietary hardware and development kits. I dont understand the relationship between Customer and Apple. Customer constantly gets screwed and they love it. I dont understand it, maybe its a comfort/reliable thing, but in 2018 use-ability seems pretty standard in every phone/app. Maybe this is true because profit feeds itself, a company gets big and uses that to get bigger. The bigger the margin between revenue and profit, the more successful=more TV ads=more profit. I find this a very frustrating situation for everyone who has Apple or Samsung products. But it looks like there is no end in sight, and Samsung has a very active Reddit marketing team that will downvote/destroy anything negative.
- saagarjha 8y agoThe reason you're getting downvotes is because you're throwing around some serious accusations without any evidence to back them up.
- heimidal 8y agoIf someone in the US isn't buying Apple or Samsung, what do you suggest they buy? Your opinion that "it is never good for consumers or developers to have proprietary hardware and development kits" isn't much of an argument, it's just an opinion.
- michaelmrose 8y agoProprietary system make it vastly easier to screw/control consumers. I recall once owning a Verizon phone where you had to both buy it outright and pay $10 per month to use the gps. Only partners were allowed to make apps so it was impossible for someone to just turn around and make a mapping app for less money. You can just not provide updates to drivers ensuring that people are stuck buying new devices to use a newer OS. You can make it increasingly hard to get official parts/services by using non standard parts and controlling access to such. I don't think its some much an opinion as pretty obvious.
- henryw 8y agoI read in another article that Apple usually is number one in the holiday quarter.
- jandrese 8y agoApple is typically #1 in profit, but Samsung beats them on volume. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Apple puts almost no effort towards building low end phones with thin profit margins. It's a huge market that has to be filled by other vendors.
- parallel_item 8y agoSome crazy stat exists related to this. Something like Apple making less than 15% of global units while reaping some 80% of the global profits related to said units. In this case, I weigh profits as the best manifestation of the company's position and not units produced.
- snowwrestler 8y agoIn 2016: > BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long estimates that Apple accounted for 103.6% of smartphone industry operating profits in the third quarter. Its share is over 100% because other vendors lost money in the business, resulting in Apple having more smartphone profit than the industry netted overall. In the year-earlier period, Apple grabbed 90% of smartphone profits, Long said in a research report Thursday. https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-iphone-grabs-104-of-smartphone-industry-profit-in-q3/ https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-iphone...
- kodablah 8y ago> This makes a lot of sense when you think about it It makes even more sense when you realize it's volume that triggers anti-competitive laws.
- toasterlovin 8y agoAnd, you know, the part where the high-volume part of the market doesn't make any money.
- 1996 8y agoI love Huawei stuff - mostly their cellular modems, as you can use their voice features on FreeSWITCH thanks to the encoding they support Lots of great items from Huawei, even if Xiaomi gets most of the press, and Huawei could be more "open"
- e12e 8y agoHey, wasn't aware of that. You mean like? : https://freeswitch.org/confluence/display/FREESWITCH/mod_gsmopen https://freeswitch.org/confluence/display/FREESWITCH/mod_gsm... Looks like it's about 20 usd/dongle - if that's with voice that's pretty cheap for setting up a national pop for incoming calls/sms (which are usually free) - for routing to voip.
- 1996 8y agoExactly. Voice and SMS work both. I love Huawei products, because as you said it is very cheap. The alternatives are several hundreds to get a working gsm pop.
- baybal2 8y agoI have Huawei Maimang 5. Huawei makes somewhat pricey, but boring mid-range products. They sell so well around the world because they caught on consumer trends that are near invisible to most American marketing people, let alone SV based ones. They target the rapidly growing global middle class.
- taobility 8y agoHuawei is so popular in Europe countries, like France, UK etc
- bhouston 8y agoI recently bought the "Huawei Mate SE 4G LTE" for my parents because they needed a phone upgrade. I thought I was buying a bargain phone at less than $205 USD, and it turns out it actually is really good. Strange how good it is at that price.
- walterbell 8y agoTry Nokia 6.1 in the same price range, available with US LTE and receiving monthly security updates.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI had a similar experience with a Huawei Mate 2 a few years ago. I used it for a year or two, then gifted it to someone who needed a new smartphone but couldn't afford one. Their devices seem to be incredible values compared to the US domestic market.
- fffernan 8y agoStrange like the government in China is subsidizing it?
- xvedejas 8y agoMore like strange how Apple can charge as much as they do because their brand is targeting the "luxury" market.
- erdosnew 8y agoi bought my mom a Huawei Mate SE a couple months ago and she loves it. I also read that Huawei's new Mate Pro notebook is getting rave reviews, it comes with a 3:2 ratio screen, hate the wide screen format most manufactures use nowadays
- ianai 8y agoIsn’t this the same company that’s barred from providing parts to US government systems - because their hardware has been found with advanced roots?
- iamdave 8y agoI think that was ZTE, but may be mistaken Edit: I went and looked it up, as far as the DoD is concerned, they're both verboten from usage in official DoD capacities it seems, and from being sold on military bases. https://www.cnet.com/news/pentagon-reportedly-bans-sale-of-huawei-and-zte-phones-on-us-military-bases/ https://www.cnet.com/news/pentagon-reportedly-bans-sale-of-h...
- plouffy 8y agoNo, that was ZTE.
- BoiledCabbage 8y agoYup. Also notable you got two quick replies, that both left out the Huawei part of the ban. I'm curious if you also get downvotes. Probably just my imagination tho here. https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/2/17310870/pentagon-ban-huawei-zte-phones-retail-stores-military-bases https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/2/17310870/pentagon-ban-huaw...
- tolien 8y agoThe UK security apparatus is nervous about Huawei's involvement in national infrastructure too - to the point that there's a Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) [1]. 1: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-security-evaluation-centre-oversight-board-annual-report-2018 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-secu...
- sorenjan 8y agoWhat's the software like on the Chinese phones, like Huawei and Xiaomi? Most hardware is similar enough that it doesn't really matter, the software defines the phone experience.
- chrisper 8y agoI have a P20 Pro. I quite like it and I even came from the pixel. It's mostly stock but with a bunch of useful features added. I put Nova launcher on it though. Some people don't like the aggressive power saving though.
- adbge 8y agoI bought a Huawei Honor 7x two months ago, and was happy with it until a software update went out that bricked mobile data on my device. Factory resetting the device doesn't fix it (nor messing with APN settings), so I looked into flashing a ROM onto it to see if that'd do it, only to discover that Huawei has taken down the service which allowed customers to unlock their devices's bootloader. Now you have to contact support and wait for them to email you an unlock code. This is clearly a user hostile move: it makes it harder to load your own software on a device you purchased and, in my case, fix my own device. I won't be buying from Huawei again.
- fermienrico 8y agoJust to add to your conclusion, I think Apple leads in privacy. I would never buy a Chinese phone just from the fact that the Chinese government has a tremendous oversight and interference with large businesses. Yes, US has that issue with NSA but at least Apple stands against abuse of data privacy and has a firm ethetical stance to protect consumers data. I don’t trust Google for that matter. Edit: I feel like there is going to be what-about-tism responses. So, before you respond, ask yourself if you can criticize the Chinese government, protest against it and make a change in China. Last time that happened in Tiananmen square, there was massacre. That does not happen in US.
- kodablah 8y ago> Yes, US has that issue with NSA but at least Apple stands against abuse of data privacy and has a firm ethetical stance to protect consumers data. I don’t trust Google for that matter. I have the opposite feeling. Apple gladly hands over iCloud storage management to the Chinese (gladly meaning they won't make a statement even about whether they are happy about it), whereas I trust Google to keep my data on servers they own and are subject to their rules. Be careful about "stands against abuse" when what you mean is "stands against abuse sometimes". Also be careful about "firm ethical stance" when they choose not to confirm that stance in places where it is at odds with the law...not very firm I'd say. At the very least, I'll take the consistent company even if I dislike their data collection practices.
- durpleDrank 8y agoNot the biggest Apple fan but I've never had a good experience with $200 phones from Aliexpress/Gearbest. I always end up returning them. A lot of the times they come with weird "Android" portal OS's. Meaning you can't really access the play store normally and annoying things like that. There is mandatory bloatware that you can't remove for services that not many westerners know about. Even the microphone and cameras are usually crappy on these. I switched from using a xiaomi redmi 5 to an old Galaxy S4, and the S4 is so much better. Even though the specs are A LOT lower, the S4 had better Microphone processing, better Camera (although not as many mega pixels), and believe it or not less restrictive bloatware. I realize all these products are made in China, I just want to tell a cautionary tale. The PRICE is right but I think the manufactures don't really understand QUALITY and CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE the way Apple does.
- chrisper 8y agoHuawei isn't $200 phones from Ali express. The P20 Pro is a great phone.
- Synaesthesia 8y agoEven the P20 lite is very impressive
- sgroppino 8y agoOr the Honor 9 lite which BTW also belongs to Huawei. Amazing value for money.
- jdietrich 8y agoThere are now a range of cheap Chinese phones that run completely stock Android, with updates directly from Google. https://www.android.com/one/ https://www.android.com/one/ The cameras do tend to be worse than on a flagship, but what do you expect for 1/3 of the price? They have to save money somewhere. An older flagship can be good value for money, but you're getting a phone with several years of wear-and-tear rather than something brand new.
- Leary 8y agoDoes anyone know how this will affect the development of 5g?
- jrnichols 8y agoIt's amazing how much Huawei has grown. Here's an article about them from 2017: http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2017/03/27/china-business-strategy/huawei-strategy-push-forward/ http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2017/03/27/china-business-stra... they wanted to top the smartphone market, and just over a year later, here they are.