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>Apple already lost to Android. Last count, Android had 80% of the market. That's like suggesting that Mercedes Benz have lost already to Ford because they hav
by ddeck 13y ago
>Apple already lost to Android. Last count, Android had 80% of the market.
That's like suggesting that Mercedes Benz have lost already to Ford because they have smaller market share. Apple produce a premium product with prices and margins that reflect that. Of course they would prefer dominant market share, as would Mercedes. But a non-majority share does not imply that they've somehow lost.
- cageface 13y agoThe car analogy gets trotted out over and over again when talking about smart phone market share but it really doesn't work at all. Smart phone ecosystems have powerful network effects that just don't exist for most luxury goods.
- chrischen 13y agoOk, then go by profit.
- cageface 13y agoSamsung is very quickly closing that gap. This is likely to snowball if iOS's share starts dipping into single digits.
- snom380 13y agoMaybe a better example is the PC market, where Apple also has a small market share but huge profits?
- cageface 13y agoSure. This analogy I can buy and this seems to be where Apple is headed right now.
- Tloewald 13y agoGood point. Which ecosystem seems to be stronger again? It's like mercedes, only mercedes also gets to drive on nicer roads that go more places. When market share translates to usage and developer revenue, as it may some day, this will change. But network effects scarcely reinforce your point.
- cageface 13y agoEvery single indicator is trending away from Apple here, from number of app downloads, to overall revenue, to revenue per-app. It's still in Apple's favor, but the gap is narrowing quickly. I've seen a very dramatic change in the attention devs feel they have to give Android even in just the last year. Maybe this won't continue but if you're skating to where the puck will be then it doesn't look so much like Apple right now. http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-index-market-q2-2013/ http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-index-market-q2-2013/
- untog 13y agoThat's like suggesting that Mercedes Benz have lost already to Ford because they have smaller market share. Which they have, when you're talking about market share. There's some cognitive dissonance going on here- Windows Phone can't succeed because it has a low market share. But Apple succeeds because it has a low market share. Basically, if low market share isn't a problem for Apple, there's no reason why it would be a problem for MS.
- tomflack 13y agoApple didn't always have a low market share and built up a huge importance for developers before their share started to slide. There are still millions of iPhones sold every year, even if they're a smaller piece of the overall pie. Contrast to Windows Phone which never had any kind of market share or importance, and has to fight up from absolutely nothing. That's the difference between iPhone's small market share and WP's small share.
- MaysonL 13y agoActually, Apple's share of the mobile phone market is still growing, as it has been since 2007. It just isn't growing as fast as Android's.
- tomflack 13y agoMarket share vs units sold. One is sliding down (market share) while units sold are still going up as the pie gets larger.
- mikeash 13y agoI'd say the difference is that Apple's share, while smaller than Android, is still large. Apple is selling huge quantities of devices and making huge quantities of cash from it. Windows Phone is doing neither.
- devcpp 13y agoSo Microsoft has lost the PC to Apple because of the manufacturer fragmentation in Windows PCs? Yeah, that makes sense.