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> healthy ecosystem of phone manufacturers. For awhile there were but now? Now it's really just Samsung. Confused, aren't there a ton of phone manufacturers? S
by dataflow 4y ago
> healthy ecosystem of phone manufacturers. For awhile there were but now? Now it's really just Samsung.
Confused, aren't there a ton of phone manufacturers? Sony, OnePlus, Asus to name a few off the top of my head. In what sense are they all "unhealthy" except Samsung?
- syntheticnature 4y agoI don't have exact data to hand, but my recollection is that Samsung is the only Android phone manufacturer turning a profit on phones.
- dataflow 4y agoI haven't looked up any others, but I just looked up OnePlus and saw this [1]: > For the first time in company history, OnePlus passed the $1 billion mark in revenue and became profitable. (2018) [1] https://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-profitable-830348/ https://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-profitable-830348/
- smegger001 4y agoif that case the case why are they all still making android phones if it isn't profitable? My perhaps naive presumption is that they are in fact profitable but not a high margin market. If it was not a profitable venture they wouldn't make them
- ejj28 4y agoIt's the market that's unhealthy. Samsung and Apple are really the only big players at this point - Sony has sub 1% market share, Asus likely even less. OnePlus is owned by OPPO and together they have about 9% market share. Samsung is the only brand that is actually able to compete with Apple.
- dataflow 4y agoStill confused. So what would be healthy in your mind? The sheer number of manufacturers competing in the Android ecosystem seems like the definition of a healthy market for Android phones—in contrast with iOS where there's 1 player. Obviously you can't have 10 manufacturers each with 50% market share, so what sign of health are you looking for that deviates so strongly from the status quo?
- ekianjo 4y agoIn other industries a healthy fragmented market looks like the major player having 30 percent share, the second about 20, and the rest is divided among a dozens different competitors. Obviously this is not the case at all in the android market.
- dataflow 4y agoAndroid seems [1] to be 34% (EDIT: or 23%? see [2]) vs. 15% for the top 2 players—is it really that stark of a contrast with 30% vs. 20% to call it unhealthy? [1] https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-manufacturers https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-manufacturers [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32114999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32114999
- ekianjo 4y agoThat kind of market share in volume is useless. The market share in value is much more relevant. Selling 100 usd smartphones is not the same as selling 1000 usd smartphones.
- dataflow 4y agoWhat are the statistics for those?
- altfredd 4y agoThe statistics are as following: Huawei made a few 1000 usd smartphones, but nearly went bankrupt and had to sell their mobile division.
- polskibus 4y agoDid they sell everything mobile or just the Honor brand?
- fauigerzigerk 4y ago
- sorenjan 4y agoSamsung has 23.7% market share, Apple 18%, Xiaomi 12.7%. https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share
- wumpus 4y agoYou forgot the word "unit". It's not money, it's units. Apple doesn't dominate the number of widgets, they dominate in money.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rascul 4y agoDoesn't Samsung make a bunch of parts for the iPhone?
- klysm 4y agoIf so that’s kind of insane to think about the market dynamics where that makes sense.
- tsimionescu 4y agoSamsung makes everything that can be made on Earth, so it's hard for Apple to avoid. And why would Samsung refuse to make profits on iPhones?
- astrange 4y agoThose aren't necessarily the same business/P&L just because they're all called Samsung either, so it's natural for them to compete with each other. (Sure they're owned by the same people, but Apple and Google are also owned by the same people - American 401k providers.)
- tsimionescu 4y agoSamsung is a conglomerate - the various Samsung businesses are separate, but they are affiliated in deeper way than just having the same investors.
- rvense 4y agoSamsung's chip department is likely very far from their phone department. They make everything, basically, some say they even run a country.
- pjmlp 4y agoMaybe from US point of view.
- indymike 4y agoThis is very US market centric.
- fomine3 4y agoMaybe now only Samsung contributes to upstream Android project significantly, and makes advanced device. For example, Desktop Mode code is came from DeX IIRC, WearOS is finally merged to Samsung's OS, foldable phones and customizes are from Galaxy. Samsung is also a one of the biggest conglomerate that has own fab and makes SoC, display, battery, DRAM, NAND, etc... Possibly also Huawei contributed much but it was gone. I think Sony, OnePlus, Asus makes just good smartphones for consumer, but not contributed to advance futuristic Android ecosystem much now (Perhaps Sony Ericsson was big in early days). I'd like to see AOSP commit ranking by organization.
- MishaalRahman 4y ago>For example, Desktop Mode code is came from DeX IIRC What Desktop Mode in Android are you referring to, and what parts of it came from Samsung DeX code? There's nothing really in AOSP that resembles DeX. >WearOS is finally merged to Samsung's OS Wear OS is closed source.