Joe Brown, New York editor of Wired, discusses Apple’s development of new iPhone features with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.”
Well, there’s no doubt that phablets are really, really popular. Despite everybody making fun of the [Samsung] Galaxy Note when it first came out, they sold about half a million of them in no time flat.
So, Apple would be foolish not to pursue a larger screen phone, especially if they’re looking to get into the Chinese market which has been so tough for them to crack. The question is whether adding that SKU is going to dilute their penetration in America and whether it’s going to play well with the U.S. market that traditionally doesn’t love such a big phone.
I think this is Apple experimenting. I don’t think we’re going to see two different phone sizes next year. That’s just my gut.
Direct link to video here.
MacDailyNews Take: There is a lot of talk in the video about why Apple iPhone “hasn’t done well” in China. As in most countries, Apple iPhone owns the high end smartphone market in China. It “hasn’t done well” in unit share simply because Apple doesn’t play the unit share game. Apple doesn’t make cheap, low margin phones, and try to make it up in volume.
Apple seeks to delight customers, not just pile them up for piling’s sake.
In fact, Apple has done quite well in China and they are doing better all the time as China’s population slowly grows richer and they are able to afford high-end products. Also of note, the iPhone 5c is selling better in relation to iPhone 5s than iPhone 4s sold in relation to iPhone 5. This tired meme that iPhone 5c is “not selling” is simply not supported by facts. iPhone 5c is not a cheap iPhone for emerging markets. Anyone who judges it as such has no earthly idea what they’re talking about.
All that said, by now, of course the world’s most valuable company should have more diverse range of iPhone display sizes available to the public. Besides the old ‘that’s what my friends/family told me to get,’ a larger screen is the number one reason given when we ask people why they settled for a fragmandroid phone instead of getting themselves a superior iOS device.