“Many of the world’s top smartphone makers used the huge industry trade show held [in Barcelona] this week, Mobile World Congress, to entice buyers around the globe,” Molly Wood reports for The New York Times.
“But despite the conspicuous absence of Apple, its iPhone was the clear target of those announcements. And the iPhone seems unstoppable. A little over a month ago, in what is becoming a familiar pattern, Apple reported record iPhone sales, including an 83 percent increase in sales in China versus the same period last year. According to a report from Canaccord Genuity, an investment firm, Apple might earn as much as 93 percent of the profit in the entire handset industry,” Wood reports. “So, what does that leave for everyone else? A dogfight over scraps.”
“‘The iPhone is capturing the most attractive and profitable customers, leaving the majority of share — but not money — to others,’ said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaws Research,” Wood reports. “Here in Barcelona, the Apple shadow was everywhere. The company is, by all accounts, a powerful moneymaking machine and on top of that, and the devices and brand are widely adored. That is a pretty steep hill for anyone else to climb. ‘Other manufacturers just look on in awe,’ said Ben Wood, mobile and wireless analyst at the research firm CCS Insight.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve written many times, in many varied ways, over a period of many years:
It’s not amassing market share that matters per se, it’s the demographics of the market share you’ve amassed that matters most.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Scott M.” for the heads up.]
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BOOM!
Absolutely shattering the competition. Finally the right company is winning.
And this despite the fact Judge Koh and the US DoJ let Sangsum steal Apple’s IP and trade dress at will.
The Android crowd does not understand this at all.
After Apple has inexorably marched from 50% of the profits to 93% of the profits all while Android marketshare has gone supernova you would think they would reexamine some things:
1. Maybe marketshare figures aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?
2. Maybe the Android OEMs business plans are crap?
3. Maybe the Android OEMs should streamline their product lineups and supply chain logistics?
4. Maybe Android ecosystem fragmentation is a real issue?
5. Maybe Android OEMs are just toadies for Google?
6. Maybe selling millions of widgets for a loss or near loss isn’t that great of a plan?
7. Maybe design is more than skin deep and specs and ports and removable batteries aren’t that lust-inducing for the average consumer.
8. Big business will definitely NOT be buying into fragmandroid yet consumers also chose Apple whenever possible, so what exactly is left?
The simple fact is that Apple should in NO way, NO how be getting that 90% profit share while Android marketshare has exploded–one billion units in the last year alone fer cryin’ out loud!!! Yet they are. Things are deeply screwed up in the Android universe.
Question to analysts: What percentage of the market does Apple need to get 100% of the profits? 😀
But it seems as though none of those Android manufacturers are giving up. They’re taking heavy losses and they just won’t quit. They keep hanging around hoping Apple is going to slip up at some point. If they fail, they should blame Google for dangling that free carrot in front of companies that probably wouldn’t have bothered with smartphone manufacturing if not for the lure of a freely licensed OS. Google knew no company could resist a free OS to help grab market share but I think Google should have at least set some standards on which companies were allowed to use Android OS.
“…and the devices and brand are widely adored.”
That’s a big part of what separates Apple from everyone else who’s been in the catbird seat. We buy Apple products because we love them, not due to some monopolistic position whereby they’re forced down our throats.
And so why doesn’t Apple get the PE ratio of Google, Amazon, or for DENNYS?
Because the League of Crap Companies and their toadies won’t allow it.
Not even a P/E ratio as high as Cisco which has gone nowhere for the last fourteen or so years. Wall Street is clearly biased against Apple. Apple cleanly beats Cisco in nearly every financial metric there is to be measured.
Haha, no, Cisco has a net effective tax rate of only 19.2%. Apple has to drop their tax rate by 7% to get that low.
Apple gets 93% of the profits because it doesn’t build crap. Consumers want quality and they want it bad.
I would say most people would much prefer to drive a BMW rather than a Malibu, but they can’t afford it so they go with the crap.
With an iPhone they can afford it so they indulge themselves.
So where are the competitors that are just as inspired and inventive as Apple? Since when does Apple have to have the monopoly on quality, innovation and public adoration?
IOW: Why are all these other companies CRAP? Doing biznizz on the cheap for the sake of merely $money$ is a sad commentary on our times. 😛 The China-fication of the world.
China is not responsible for the throngs of US companies producing mediocre to crap products, nor an example others are following. Two world leaders in that regard are Microsoft and Google. Microsoft could easily have written a much, much better OS. They simply chose not to.
I understand what you mean. What I meant was that China still has the bad reputation of inventing nothing, ripping off everything, selling crap while lapping up the bucks. This is certainly the main story of China’s technology sector. This same bad attitude has been evident amidst US businesses of late, not to mention South Korea…