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""The iPhone will not substantially alter the fundamental structure and challenges of the mobile industry," Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc
by Aloha 13y ago
""The iPhone will not substantially alter the fundamental structure and challenges of the mobile industry," Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said in a report this month."
I'd actually argue that the quote above is substantively correct (in the US).
2006: Phones are sold largely on contract, by various retailers, including the manufacturer; churn is driven largely on pricing, network performance, and network-effect factors.
2014: Phones are sold largely on contract, by various retailers, including the manufacturer; churn is driven largely on pricing, network performance, and network-effect factors.
The iPhone changed the experience of using the mobile phone, and what we did on our mobile phones - not how we buy them, nor did the change the base reason people switch carriers - not in the long game anyhow, people still switch because of dissatisfaction with their existing provider, or that the grass appears greener on the other side.
- hayksaakian 13y agoData became significantly more important. We went from being nickel and dimed on minutes and SMS with unlimited data to being nickel and dimed on data with unlimited minutes and SMS.
- josephlord 13y agoAnd before the iPhone data charges where horrific, £/$/€'s per MB (not GB). If you were only nickel and dimed you were doing well. To get the initial exclusive iPhone contracts the telcos had to offer unlimited data which made a smartphone useful in a way that the earlier models weren't. That is how the iPhone changed the market for the better at least in the UK and even if you don't have one. Competitive pressure may have caused it to happen eventually but we can all thank Steve Jobs for speeding up that important change.
- Gustomaximus 13y agoIt has significantly increased the challenges for telco's in they are increasingly a dumb pipe (e.g iMessenger) and limiting their ability to value add or profit take. And for manufactures it opened the way for software to overtake hardware as defining feature of a phone, a massive structural shift in the industry IMO.
- eruditely 13y agoYou cannot possibly legitimately believe this claim. You must have fallen far, your type of correctness is utterly naive.
- agumonkey 13y agoThis is telco, not mobile industry.
- GoldenMonkey 13y agoYou're cherry picking a small part of the industry. The carriers. For the broad mobile industry, the changes have been fundamental. Feature phones are Dead. Traditional Phone Manufactures are on life support. Blackberry is dead, Nokia is losing their shirt, they are losing money. Samsung and Apple together are taking 103% of the profits in the industry. Hey, that doesn't add up? Well, because the competitors are at -3%. The app ecosystem has paid out $15B+ in revenue to developers. This is a fundamental market shift for phone application developers. These are fundamental and important shifts in the mobile industry.