Slashdot Mirror
Apple Captures Record 91 Percent of Global Smartphone Profits: Research (cnbc.com)
Apple has captured a record share of profits in the global smartphone industry in the third quarter, according to new research, despite grappling with falling iPhone sales. From a report on CNBC:Third-quarter smartphone operating profit reached $9 billion globally of which Apple took 91 percent of the share, Strategy Analytics said in a note on Tuesday. This amounts to $8.19 billion for the U.S. technology giant. Apple has the highest profit margins in the smartphone industry thanks to a loyal brand following and the ability to price its iPhones at a premium. And the figures come even after Apple reported three straight quarters of iPhone sales declines. Sat a long way behind Apple is China's Huawei which managed to grab 2.4 percent of global operating profit share in the smartphone market, accounting for $200 million, according to Strategy Analytics. Chinese start-up brands Vivo and OPPO are in third and fourth place, both capturing 2.2 percent of global smartphone profit each.
You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits.
It means that they are taking a higher percentage of your money than any of their competitors.
You might want the company to have the greatest sales figures (not true of Apple), or the greatest proportional re-investment (not true of Apple), or the greatest customer base even (not true of Apple).
But, like walking through Las Vegas... all that show and money to blow on things comes from one source... people like you paying over the odds for their products.
If that does not include their App Store profits, then it's even more significant.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits.
As long as I'm getting what I consider good value for money I don't care at all if they are making a big profit. The only way Apple or any company makes a big profit is if people like what they are getting for the price. If it wasn't worth the price then they would be forced to charge less. Apple products are a completely discretionary purchase.
It means that they are taking a higher percentage of your money than any of their competitors.
Which is irrelevant if I am getting a higher value for my money as well. Obviously a lot of people think Apple gives better value for the money than the alternatives. You don't have to agree with them for yourself but that doesn't mean they are wrong.
But, like walking through Las Vegas... all that show and money to blow on things comes from one source... people like you paying over the odds for their products.
Clearly people don't find that to be a problem. Yes Vegas wasn't built on winners but people keep coming so obviously they feel they are getting good value for what they spend. If it's not your thing then do something else and I assure you nobody will care or think less of you for it.
So the poor could buy Pabst Blue Ribbon and Mad Dog 20/20 with it. Or drugs. This is trickle-down economics at its best!
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Digital Trends work worked out a while back that Apple makes about $288 in profit for each iPhone sold. The average Android device... well it varies very widely. But According to 'Pocketnow' it works out to only about $25 of actual profit per device.
Honestly... Apple is really REALLY screwing it's customer base by selling them last years hardware in every new phone and just pocketing the profits. And for some reason people STILL flock to them.
91% of the profits share, would be fine, if they also had 91% of the market share, sadly they have ~40% of the market share.
Why is that sad? Not all customers are equally profitable. Companies that presume otherwise usually find themselves in a bankruptcy court rather quickly.
So either their product is more expensive than their competitors, or they have massive efficiencies that their competitors don't... (or some combination).
Apple phones ARE relatively expensive. This has never been a debate. Obviously most people that buy them find them to be good value for the money. The fact that they charge more than some others is irrelevant. If a company cannot sell something for enough money to make a profit then it is an indisputable fact that people don't value what they are selling.
And yes Apple does realize some cost efficiencies from their size which few others in their market can match.
From the article: Apple's closest rival Samsung does not feature in the Strategy Analytics report.
Android commoditizes the remainder of the cell phone market, making margins slim. The revenue from Android is captured by Google in the form of advertising sales on their integrated browser/search instead of by the cell phone manufacturers.
Own the platform, not the factory.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Despite the bendgates 'n whatnot, iphones has a very solid reputation for being reliable, secure and simple. You know, like a phone *should* be.
People who make decent money have a tendency to seriously value their time and arn't willing to spend the time dicking around with their device to make it work.
Buying an expensive item risks you overpaying. Buy a cheap item risks you buying something that isn't fit for purpose, and *all* the money is wasted.
Probably because the Note 7 recall erased their profits and put them in a loss for the quarter. Including the loss is what pushed the mathematically correct but misleading headline that Apple earned over 100% of the profits we saw earlier.
And yet they *still* say there is no way they could make any money if they built their phones in the U.S. Yeah. Right.
You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits.
Standard economic theory says that they will make record profits if and only if their customers believe that they are providing a superior product. So, yes, actually you do want to buy from a company making record profits: this is a sign that their customers like them; and, in this case, iPhones have been around long enough that it is a sign that their customers are repeat customers.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Apple, you've got $200 bilion dollars. Put $20 billion of that into finding a cure for cancer or spinal injury or something fucking useful. You know how much money you can make off a cancer cure? About $1 trillion easily. Because you can charge $100,000 per treatment (even if it's one injection) and the insurance companies will gladly pay for it because they are paying way more than that for chemo and other stuff associated with people fucking dying from it. Millions of people get cancer every year .. a cancer cure would easily bring in $1 trillion pure profit per year. And after you cure cancer make a one shot instant cure for the cold or flu.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
my kid uses it as an always on instant social network with her friends. It's what keeps her on the iPhone. She wanted a Galaxy S7 last time she got a new phone but iMessage kept her on the iTredmill. Vendor lock-in for the win.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
And given the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian I'd assume we'd have all these problems knocked out by the Churches.
Yeah, I'm being an ass. Nobody likes to be reminded that people aren't really charitable. This is one of the reasons I'm a socialist. You can't have a functioning civilization based on people's niceness. It's too easily for a few assholes to put us all at each others throats. You can't give people the option to support decent human civilization. They'll trade it all in for a nice pool in their back yard and maybe a manservant or two.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The wealthy dont use apps. They have assistants (Trump doesnt tweet himself. He has 2 assistants to whom he shouts out his tweets and they tweet it). Its the assistants who are probably young interns making less than minimum wage, living in crappy shared apartments, surrounded by loads of money at work but having negative net-worths who spend their credit card limits on buying iPhones. Its the one thing in their lives which makes them feel in control. They are willing to skip buying groceries and mooch off fake dates for their dinner rather than give up their iPhones.
**Life is too short to be serious**
If you think wealthy people (i.e. those who can afford good hardware) are going to go broke buying an extra life or whatever in a mobile game, you are so out of touch with reality that you probably should drown yourself in the nearest puddle.
If they gave all that money to the poor. But that will never happen.
Just as soon as Samsung, HTC and LG do the same...
Why not call for that, eh, Hater?
You have to realize that Apple sells a brand, which people associate with devices.
One segment is status seekers, people who buy Apple Watches and Apple iPhones to display their status, much as the artificial scarcity in diamonds is used. These people want certain things, and servicing them is very profitable.
Others use Apple for reliability and not having to understand the underlying technology. For them iPhones are a tool. They are more likely to do something like buy an iPhone 5 SE and never pay for any of the apps or music they use on it (you can legally get almost all music from Apple hosted podcasts, and the same goes for news, and you can turn off advertising feedback fairly easily). They are not as profitable as a market segment, but they are willing to pay the base premium for the devices they use which they find useful, and Apple makes more than enough from them, while using them as a marketing wedge to attract the first group and the third group, which leads to further profits.
The third group are typical Apple users. They think "oh, my icons are using it, and my busy tech friends are using it, so it must be good". These people buy the iPhones, rarely buy the add on devices like the Apple Watch, but they pay a lot of money to buy music and shows and movies on their iPhones, which leads to massive profits for Apple.
Quite a sound marketing strategy.
(shoutout to my fellow Capilano University Business Alumni)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
/. is a pro-Apple site.
You're kidding, right?
They have assistants (Trump doesnt tweet himself. He has 2 assistants to whom he shouts out his tweets and they tweet it).
At 3 am? Right.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Previously, the market research was that Apple and Samsung had 99% of the smartphone profits. Other market researchers, presumablely who include Samsung, latest was Apple had 103% of the smartphone profits.
...to note that Samsung's profits for this year went up in flames?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.