The take away is that Apple mobile devices are gaining share in their segment, defined as high end devices. The salient question for all of the market share reports is "share of what?" It is patently clear that the composition of the pie is weighted to cheap android hardware. Some would describe as the better value rather than "cheap". I'm thrilled that I paid $300 with no contract instead of $750.
As we've seen with other software wars, when a certain threshold of dominance is reached, development money, corporate adoption, and other factors start to snowball to reinforce it. On balance, Android is gaining all of the users leaving other platforms and iOS is treading water. What will happen if this trend continues for another year? Will there come a point where Android has so many more users that developing for iOS will be put on the backburner?
What you write has routinely been pedestrian and repetitive. I have seen credible criticisms of Apple products, strategy, and process but none sourced with your name. Ah yes, your points are much less pedestrian and repetitive, such as this one:
Apple has no intention of conceding its market to anyone. Can you name a company that does intend to concede their market? Apple can intend to hang tight all they want, but that won't stop them from ceding share if better, cheaper phones poach sales.
The resilience of the 4s flies in the face of all of the angst about less expensive and larger form factor phones. Try asking those who use a 4s why though bought it and what advantages it has versus similarly priced phones. When we did this, we found that brand recognition and reputation was a major factor. That's a good thing for Apple, of course, but it is also indicates that the users are more prone to shift as they become more sophisticated and examine the value instead of the name. |
