“iPhone 6 represents a willingness to cater to the market, to give the market what it wants (a larger screen iPhone) rather than adhering to an oddly Socratic ideal of ‘best.’ There is no best in an absolute sense, when it comes to consumer electronics. Apple’s belief that the 4 inch iPhone screen was the ‘best size’ had become an anachronism,” Mark Hibben writes for Seeking Alpha. iPhone 6 demonstrates Cook’s ability to strike the balance that Jobs achieved so well.””
“Now we know the true extent of the build out by Apple in anticipation of last weekend, as well as their failure to meet demand for the Plus. As of Sunday evening, the online Apple Store showed a typical iPhone 6 back ordered 7-10 business days, while the iPhone 6 Plus was back ordered 3-4 weeks,” Hibben writes. “Once Apple cranks up supply in calendar Q4, I expect the competition to be shredded. What really can stand up to iPhone 6? Windows Phone, with its sinking market share, antiquated 32 bit processors, and, let’s face, unpopular UI? Or the new, untested Android L? And where is a 64 bit equivalent to the A8? Intel’s 64 bit Merrifield? Try Googling Merrifield and see if you can find anything since February. If you do, be sure to let me know.”
“The lack of effective competition sets Apple up nicely for huge iPhone unit sales for the December quarter of upwards of 60 million units, for a y/y gain of about 20%. With this kind of unit sales growth, Apple is sure to gain smartphone market share, as it usually does in the December quarter,” Hibben writes. “More importantly, Apple will gain sustainable market share among the top 5 tier of smartphone vendors, a metric that I’ve proposed is more relevant since I wrote “Apple’s iPhone 6 Event: A Turning Point” in August. This metric excludes “white box” Android devices that don’t significantly contribute to the Android ecosystem and probably shouldn’t be counted as smartphones.”
Read more in the full article here.