No, Apple’s market share never breaks 20% in that graph anywhere. In the early days BB was ahead and the dominant smartphone maker, and by the time iPhone sales really started to rise, it was overtaken by Android in sales. A lot of these sub 200 and sub 100 phones that are driving growth are basically today’s equivalent of Symbian OS.
Apple’s marketshare has always been consistent, and fairly small, I don’t expect it to ever be over 30%.
The iPhone has become a niche player targeting women who are afraid of computers and self-conscious enough to spend as much on their phone as they do their handbag.
I think he means that while Nokia and Blackberry phones were categorized as “smart phones”, they were really not the same type of phone as the iPhone, based on features and usage. So, if we more narrowly define iPhone in a category that does not contain work-related Blackberry or Nokia psuedo smart phones, iPhone had a much higher market share than 20%.
Most of those Nokia’s were considered “smartphones” back then, but today would be considered “featurephones”.
Yes, this might be surprising, but the iPhone 1 is going to be compared to its contemporaries, not what we have today. Furthermore, as I stated, the sub 100 and sub 200 are feature phone replacements, and equivalent to the Nokia Symbian. In addition, even BB was ahead of the iPhone during the early days, as for “narrowly defining phones as not containing work-related Blackberry or Nokia pseudo smartphones” that’s circular reasoning, no kidding if you automatically exclude everyone else, Apple is going to be the biggest player in that category.
Finally, if you look at this graph, even in the “Android dominant era”, which started in 2010, iPhone’s market share again, has been very stable with dips and rises corresponding to product releases.
I didn’t break out my ruler, but the iOS trendline appears to be heading lower. Lower highs and lower lows with each cycle. That doesn’t seem healthy.
Oh, and I own a few shares of Apple so I’m not rooting against them by any means.
There are different valid ways to look at most issues. Grouping Symbian with iPhones just because both are phones is one way to look at it. However, it is also reasonable to say that iPhone is in a different class, since it was much better than what Nokia had at the time. Either way just gives me different points of view, and I can learn from both, rather than stubbornly argue that my point of view is best.
Great, then you should try to learn the point that first gen iPhone is to be compared to its peers in its own time frame, which is Symbian and Blackberry, not phones that came out years later. In either case, regardless of which timeframe you select, iPhone never breaks 20% market share, even after the introduction of Android.
Even rational/intelligent analysts are getting fooled by market skimming pricing strategy of Apple.
Poor times…
I’ve not been in the market for a new phone for more than a year. Did Apple drop the price of the 5s when the Galaxy S5 came out?
That chart looks a lot like the PC chart from the 80s, with more open architecture PCs changing the face of the industry while AAPL chugs along at a steady, slightly declining rate.
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/10/
IDK whether or not Apple dropped the price of 5s when Galaxy s5 came out…(since i am out of phone market for 4 years)…but two things i can tell with 100% certainity 1) Apple will drop the price of iphone 5s when iphone 6s hits the market…(a combination of slow cannibalization and price skimming strategy) 2)3rd world countries will be “dumped” with out dated 5s iphone models…
Right except in the smartphone graph, Apple has a 20% share, and in the PC graph, closer to 1%. Other than that yeah, pretty much the same.
It has 10% and then falls to 1% when PCs take over. I’m done here.
Given your statements that Apple never “owned” the smartphone market given that they never had a greater than 50% share, do you still think that they “own” the high end segment given that they sell less than half of the $600+ smartphones on the market?
Thank you.
Link?
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/3/12/700m-smartphones-tablets-in-china
“High-end phones (in China) are a big market: 27% of the total active base, and 80% of those are iPhones”
You have to go to several sources. This year the Samsung S5 is selling at 70% the rate of the iPhone 5S. Add in the HTC One, which is selling at about 20% of the rate of the 5S this year, and you are near parity. There are a number of other “high end” Android phones that are priced in somewhat the same range as the iPhone that push Android well over the 50% mark. Apple’s share of the “high end” market has been in decline over the past couple of years.
So no then?