“An early chill has come to the mobile phone sector,” Scott Moritz reports for TheStreet.
“The biggest season for phone sales is just around the corner, and a heaping buffet of beefy Google Androids and an enticing Apple iPhone or two await,” Moritz reports. “But the bountiful supply might not go with what appears to be a shrinking appetite among consumers.”
Moritz reports, “Here are a few recent warning signs… The Motorola Bionic launched Thursday at Verizon to a very soggy reception. Texas Instruments — one of the world’s largest mobile chip suppliers — slashed its sales guidance by nearly 10% Thursday… ‘We doubt that even smartphones will be spared if consumer demand does falls off rapidly as an increasing number of electronics manufacturers seem to believe,’ JPMorgan analyst Rod Hall wrote in a note Friday.”
“A slowdown in phone sales, however, isn’t likely to be applied evenly across the broad field of competitors,” Moritz reports. “With its new iPhone 5 and a stripped-down iPhone 4 potentially on its way this month or next, Apple will likely have its own sales party completely detached from the woes of less popular phone makers.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “David E.” and “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
Sounds like the “smartphone market” is becoming the “iPhone market.”
The iPhone 5 is going to be massive, especially here in the U.S. A lot of Verizon customers have been waiting for it, deciding to skip the iPhone 4 this spring. And with Sprint joining the party, I think Apple is going to demolish the rest of the industry.
You only need to look as far as Apple’s cash reserve to see that Apple’s iPhone has already demolished the smartphone industry since the iPhone is bringing in most of Apple’s profits. Forget about Wall Street or the analysts because they can twist anything they want as far as Apple’s share price is concerned. Apple’s revenues and cash reserve doesn’t lie.
However, the iPhone 5 will very obviously prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the iOS ecosystem is practically invincible profit-wise. Tens of millions of iPhone 5s unleashed on multiple carriers nearly at once will be mayhem for the rest of the smartphone vendors. They’ll be looking at a black hole of sales. The carriers will definitely push the iPhone 5 moneymaker and let those unwanted Android smartphones languish on the shelves and their fate will be sealed. No sale.
The first I heard about the Droid Bionic was last night in a TV ad, and the ad didn’t even state what was different about it other than it was 4G and was assembled by ripping parts off of killer robots.
The problem is Motorola, Samsung, HTC, etc. seem to release a new Android phone about every other month, so why would anyone anticipate one?
And finally, the iPhone 4 which will inherit the bargain iPhone slot from the current 3GS will NOT be a “stripped-down” iPhone 4. It will have reduced memory (8GB likely), but otherwise it will be a full iPhone 4.
Exactly, there are too many Android phone releases, so that any one is less and less interesting. Further, the wireless carriers who promote these devices are more interested in promoting their brand than the actual phone. So, while I saw the Droid Bionic ad last night, I had no real idea who made it. I just knew it was on Verizon because they called it a Droid.
Apple is the only company that is a myth-killer. It does not follow the traditional Wallstreet’s cliché that every tech companies are following. It is been rewarded for being the most successful contrarian in business history.
Every day I look at Engadget and it seems practically every day is a new Android smartphone release. It just never ends. The Droidtards are certainly excited but how many Android smartphones can one Droidtard buy. Those Android smartphones are so similar that a coin flip could decide buying one over another and tomorrow will offer something newer.
I understand that consumers supposedly love choice but it gets to the point when there’s an overload and already I believe that point has been reached. Non-tech consumers will just be confused by the endless variety and almost no mid-level Android smartphone vendor will get much in the way of sales. It must be brutal trying to promote an Android smartphone in such a crowded market.
The success of the iPhone is proof that consumers prefer simplicity over choice.
In a way that’s true, but the flipside is the choice that comes from the biggest app ecosystem.
“The first I heard about the Droid Bionic was last night in a TV ad, and the ad didn’t even state what was different about it other than it was 4G and was assembled by ripping parts off of killer robots.”
‘Killer robots”?… Don’t think so if they get beat up!…
And who wants a pretend iPhone made up of junk parts from looser bionic robot parts that got their ass wooped by a GIRL! And Droid had the nerve to call the iPhone a “Princess” phone. Guess Apple can call the Droid Bionic phone a “Prissy” phone!
You want a pretty phone?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w83UQkiuNZQ
Or do you want a sissy phone?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-K71MpwCko
The “Bionic” video brings to mind Lorena Bobbitt.
Wow, a fairly sane report from Moritz.
KC
It’s still Scott Moritz though.
I just want my T-Mobile iPhone. Come on Tim, I’ve waited patiently.
One interpretation: “consumer demand falls off rapidly”.
Correct interpretation: “consumer demand for imitation wannabe iPhones falls off rapidly”.
There is only one company building the iPhone and that’s Apple. All those Android smartphone vendors are competing against one another and basically trying to cancel each other out. I don’t think any of them are stealing iPhone unit market share per se, but they’re definitely stealing profit share from each other. I’m fairly certain that the Android smartphone market is going to thin out considerably due to profit losses.
Apple is causing all those Android smartphone companies work twice as hard to make half the profit in the smartphone sector. The Android vendors have to practically design a new smartphone every month just to keep parity with one another. It’s either that or get lost in the crowd. Their production runs are going to get smaller and smaller which will be costlier for them in the long run. The whole financial strategy of the Android platform is just plain screwy so I don’t know why Wall Street is so hyped on it. It’s clearly not making most companies profitable to any major degree.
Same old (Mac versus PC) story, being replayed in mobile phones. There’s the iPhone and there’s the Horde. Oh, there’s a new member of the Horde; no one cares.
But when there’s a new iPhone around the corner, it’s time to speculate and celebrate.