Well that's the long term data we have. It could be that this quarter iPhones are outselling all the Android variants, but long term it's pretty much accepted that Apple is losing share worldwide. I have seen articles commenting on the global market that say things like "the iPhone has become a niche player." But in fact, Apple has been only a niche player since the beginning, and is still growing.
Let's move from making general statements like "it's pretty much accepted" to the data. If you look at trends over the past five years, obviously, iPhone is up. And even counting just through the end of last quarter, it continues to rise.
Here's some data from Gartner supporting what I'm talking about.
Apple's iPhone grows to 5.5% share of all mobile phone sales
By AppleInsider Staff
The iPhone accounted for 5.5 percent of all mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2012, making Apple the third-largest handset maker in the world.Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached almost 428 million units in the third quarter of 2012, research firm Gartner revealed in a new report on Wednesday. While overall mobile phone sales were down 3.1 percent, smartphone sales were up 47 percent year over year.
The growth of smartphones helped Apple, as the iPhone expanded from its 3.9 percent share in the year-ago quarter. Apple's total 23.5 million iPhones sold to end users came without offering any "feature phones" still sold by rivals Samsung and Nokia.Those low-cost, low-profit phones offered by Nokia helped those companies take the first two spots in terms of market share in the third quarter. Samsung accounted for 22.9 percent of mobile phone sales, while Nokia took 19.2 percent. Source: appleinsider.com
It should be noted, too, that while more people buy phones other than iPhones (which has always been true), more of the high-profit sales go to Apple (and Samsung). Apple also does this in the computer market.
If you have data that contradicts this, please show me. |
