“Much has been made of the iPhone’s declining market share over the past couple of years. Currently, it hovers around 15%, and it looks set to decline further in the coming years. However, the absolute number of phones sold year-over-year continues to rise, with Apple selling 35.2 million iPhones in Q3 2014 compared to 31.2 million in Q3 2013,” Zentech writes for Seeking Alpha.
“Apple bears point out that this growth is less than the growth of the general smartphone market (which is set to grow about 20% in 2014 according to Fitch). They imply that this will led to big trouble for Apple once the market is saturated, arguing that if the general smartphone market starts growing far more slowly, iPhone sales will start going flat, or even start to decrease, taking even more of Apple’s market share with it,” Zentech writes. “However, this isn’t necessarily true, or even the norm for Apple. Even in a market that isn’t growing, a company can grow their own market share within that company. This can be seen in how the Mac actually started growing both its market share and absolute units shipped year-over-year after the PC market started becoming saturated.”
Zentech writes, “The Mac line has still managed to see tremendous growth even in the face of single digit growth in the PC market. I believe this will remain true for the iPhone as well, due to the same reasons the Mac managed to gain market share… As of 2013, Apple made around 45%, of the total profit in the PC market [hardware manufacturers]. The iPhone will likely continue to lose market share, but what’s important is that the units sold year-over-year and the profits continue to grow. Eventually, this will result in market share gains as well, as it did for the Mac.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple’s Mac is en route to dominance – July 29, 2014
Apple’s Q314: Surging Mac defies a shrinking Windows PC market – July 24, 2014
Seeking Alpha doesn’t find much to print unless it’s anti-Apple, and Fitch is a proven whore for whomever pays. Hey SA, which company makes most of the smartphone profit?
I just simple best company in this world…..
The only phone (or product) that is important to me is the one that I pay the bills for. Use whatever you want. Like whatever you like.
I predict that the global market for the smartphones being sold today will be almost completely gone in about five years.
This has serious implications.
Apple has a grass is greener problem… Where some iPhone users do not understand what they are going to miss. They will be buying Microsoft and Android devices, mostly because they don’t know better. Apple can look forward to these return customers to keep their numbers up…
There are a many of reasons Apple may loose market share. Some of which are of their own making (screen size, changing charging connectors, cost) Then there are other factors, such as blatant copy cats that want to also be Apple and Steve Jobs – numerous ignorant users, who do what other people tell them what to do, or follow paths to seemingly greener patches.
I see a lot of people, who are not buying Apple products this time around, and they have no idea why. Also they didn’t understand why they bought the iPhone either. The me too – sheeple.
As far as changing chargers go, I’ve been buying cell phones for 20 years, and every phone has had a different charging connector. I don’t think really that is much of an issue. The new USB3 (b?) design might end up being an adequate standard. Don’t know enough yet to know.
All I know, is the gripes I’ve heard about the change. A lot of peripherals, became less convenient etc. justified or not, I am hearing the grumblings. Also, a new connector for every new phone is not the norm anymore. At least with iPhone and iPods, they had the same connector for 10 years or so. I like the new cable, but I don’t think it’s better, just smaller. I can still get them for $0.75 each, even though they are less reliable. The Chinese can clone almost anything.
I was at work at 6:00 am, turned on my dell with windows 7 and it was 7:15 am by the time all the updates and reboots took place until i could use it again …thats productivity!
And this is EXACTLY why Windows is and always be, a pain pain in the ass to use (when it finally is ready to use)
Mac grow in sales because they are top computers and do the job right. My oldest Mac is now almost 6 years old. It runs Mavericks well and will also run Yosemite. Granted it’s slower than a up to date Mac, but it works just fine. Given the long time these things last, the higher cost of the Mac is not that much of an issue anymore. (Not that it should have been given what one gets for the dollar.)