“The smartphone industry is growing really, really fast,” Michael Comeau writes for Minyanville. “But it’s also a mess.”
Beside Apple and Samsung, “the industry is in rough shape, with a few bright spots here and there — namely the Chinese players like Huawei and ZTE that are moving big units in emerging markets,” Comeau writes. “What’s the culprit? Simple — there are too many darn phones out there.”
“If the 5C had been a super-cheap phone, maybe Apple could have grown iPhone units by 50-60% (assuming no supply constraints), but Apple is not playing the market-share game. If it were, there’s no way the new iPad mini with Retina display would have been priced at $399, a $70 premium to last year’s model,” Comeau writes. “It wants to protect its brand and its profit margins and will sacrifice current growth and market share to get there. Last quarter, its iPhone ASP fell by just 6.5% — which is incredible relative to the 22.8% drop seen in phablets.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple is Samsung’s worst nightmare – November 14, 2013
