“How safe are Apple and Samsung in smartphones – could one or the other be vulnerable, right now, to a new hit phone?” Haydn Shaughnessy writes for Forbes.
“Continuing my conversation with Hong Kong-based mobile expert Tomi Ahonen, I asked for his view on the status of the Apple vs Samsung battle,” Shaughnessy writes. “I say this competition defines the smartphone sector. Tomi’s view is that the relevance of Samsung vs Apple is already on the wane.”
Apple’s current 20% market share will not hold to the end of this decade, as the global handset production shifts from the current 45%/55% smartphone/dumbphone mix, to 100 smartphones produced by 2020. Apple’s market share likely falls to half its current level, to be similar to the historical share that the Macintosh had for decades in the PC market, as a highly-desirable ‘Apple way’ to do computers, for a luxury niche end of the global PC market, doing particularly well in the affluent West.
For Apple this is a critical year, can the next iPhone be a big hit again to protect the top end where Apple is no longer always the coolest most desirable device; but more importantly when will Apple give us a lower-cost i.e. mid-price iPhone to help its position in less-affluent emerging world markets, and hold some market share at the lower price points?
I think Apple’s share this year will decline but gradually, as the global smartphone market breaches the 1 billion new devices sold per year level by Christmas. – Tomi Ahonen
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Those who consider market share as the only measure of success do not understand basic business concepts.
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