iPhone slips in Europe as Windows Phone claims OVER 10% market share Apple's iPhones are losing ground in Europe as consumers increasingly opt for Android and Windows Phone handsets, according to researchers. Analysts with Kantar Worldpanel ComTech found that over the third quarter of this year, Apple saw its share of the market in Germany, France, and the UK decline over the same period in …
The point is that Apple are rapidly headed to #3 in the market - Window Phone is clearly on target to be the #2 OS Phone OS generally and #1 Phone OS in the enterprise (largely by replacing the remains of Blackberry)....
If Microsoft get their planned OS and Store unification right in Q1 2015 (Project 'Threshold'), then I can see a possibility that they might even make it to #1 Phone OS overall....
You are joking aren't you?
MS / Nokia are selling a lot of units because they are very heavily subsidized, at some stage their going to have to compete and at that point we can take market share sales figures at face value.
The people I know who have windows phones use it for a bit of browsing and to read their e-mail and not much else there also of the older generation who have no interest in apps and very little brand loyalty.
Whats worse is in my sons age group (teens) and among his friends I have yet to see anyone with a Windows phone.
> How much does ...
That is not particularly relevant. Microsoft gave Nokia at least $1billion a year and yet Nokia still showed a loss. It only showed a profit in one quarter when it sold its headquarters and took that in as revenue.
It was selling many of its phones at below cost. An analysis claimed that the price of many devices needed to be raised by 15% for the company to break even.
So would you rather sell millions of high end phones - provide great support and build a loyal user base (while making healthy profits on the device and then on the media / apps OR sell more phones (many) at little or no profit and no loyalty to any particular brand and Google take all the profit from selling media etc.
A pointless measure? 0% smartphone market share would be dire for Apple considering how much the company depends on the iPhone for its existence, so a trend towards the lower end of the market share dial would certainly be a valid measure of success or otherwise. So, is there a trend in that direction?
Of course, Apple supporters can be buoyed by the huge profits the iDevice maker reaps despite its dwindling market share - unless of course, its profitability is also trending downward. Oh, it is? Oops...
The Cupertino Colossus would be well advised to get its "next big thing" out the door, I think.
Their share may have dropped because the market has expanded significantly but mainly at the low (no profit) end of the market. Basically every phone these days is a smartphone. If you looked at Apple's share of the high end market that would be more interesting or look at the total value of their shipments.
exactly - these numbers are coming from a market space that Apple doesn't even bother to compete in. Apple's CEO has specifically said they are not going after that market. They are perfectly happy where they are at..rolling in more cash than most anyone else combined in the mobile space.
If apple ever does feel threatened they can easily drop the prices as a last resort, their cash stockpile is so big they can sustain just about anything for the next 10-20 years.
(I say this as a WebOS user -- still waiting for galaxy note 3 64GB to show it's face before I make the jump to android.)
The article didn't mention the size of the market, thus limiting the inferences that can be drawn from market share. It is plausible that more smartphones have been sold than ever before, and it is plausible that people who have not bought a smartphone before are more likely to buy a less expensive model... but without the numbers that is just conjecture.
I think the Apple versus Microsoft figure is relevant here because there's no real landfill Windows Phone category. In the way that it's designed Windows Phone is much more similar to iOS than Android in that you can't chuck it onto three-year old hardware with a vendor-specific shell — Android isn't just about the blockbusting flagships — so it would seem likely that Microsoft is preparing to beat Apple at its own game.
If I were Apple? It's time for serious price cuts to the 5C. It needs to be free on all but the stingiest of contract. It's probably time to accept that the market seems to prefer dramatically bigger screens, too.
> there's no real landfill Windows Phone category.
Windows Mobile 6.x phones were dead-ended by its replacement WP7 being completely incompatible in hardware and software.
Windows Phone 7 phones were dead-ended by its replacement WP8 being completely incompatible in hardware and software.
Next will be the Windows Phone 8 phones (and Surface RT/2 tablets) when Microsoft dumps both to replace them with a 'converged product' that is incompatible with either.
Win 6x is far from dead... its still the OS of choice for handheld point of sale terminal....
the hardware inside win phone8 and RT devices is no less powerful than current mid to high end android... so I expect ti to run the new converged os comfortably...
as for making hardware obsolete... apple cuts features from each out going model too... pre iphoone 3? door stop... 3 series... no updates for years... 4 - os is hobbled compared to 4s, probably wont support ios8...
all hardware reaches its EOL sooner or later... apple is no exception....
> Win 6x is far from dead... its still the OS of choice for handheld point of sale terminal....
While both WM6.x and some POS terminals may be based on CE (as is other embedded stuff), that doesn't make the POS terminals run WM6.x.
> [iPhone] 4 - os is hobbled compared to 4s, probably wont support ios8
The iPhone 3 is 5 1/2 years old. iPhone 4 is 3 1/2 years and runs the latest iOS 7 (minus what requires hardware it doesn't have).
Some may have bought a WP 7 just over a year ago and all they got as 'updates', and maybe all they will ever get, was twice as many colours on the start screen.
Landfill means discarding the device before it reaches the hardware's end-of-life.
WP7 phones may, just possibly, be getting discarded (or more likely handed down) because of WP8, but I doubt it; a Lumia 800 is still a very nice phone - according to the person I bought one for.
WP8 phones will be supported for a considerable time beyond the last sale of a WP8 device.
People complain about XP support ending but the last XP machine must have been sold a ridiculous time ago, embedded systems notwithstanding. So I have no worries about support and even improvements to WP8 (and even RT) for at least the life of any phone I buy. TBH, although a fancy update is imminent (already available from MS but not as a Nokia OTA), few if any of the changes listed are a big deal; I am mostly interested in Nokia's specific camera improvements to an already superior experience.
"If I were Apple? It's time for serious price cuts to the 5C"
Then thank goodness you are not Apple, since you don't understand their business at all. What people often seem to ignore is that computers and other technology really has not gotten cheaper over the last decade, it's actually quality dropping causing price cuts. Look at the MacBook range, cost is similar to a decent PC a decade ago and quality is excelent with attention to engineering where it counts (battery life a good example). Other vendors have laptops of this quality and they all cost similar. Now look at your "free" android phone and tell me if it's as good as a top end Samsung from last year. It's not, it's a worse phone in every respect and yet you're expecting Apple to sell last years quality model for less just because they have a better one out. Apple really don't need the business that badly, and the only way they would go bankrupt is if they race to the bottom with HTC etc. or if product quality and innovation stop - which is what killed RIM rather than price since if you'll recall RIM did have cheap crappy phones.
Android lovers big up market share but it's pretty easy to sell cheap / free. A few years ago the volume of the phone market was in cheap, simple (candy bar) phones. Now every phone is a smartphone (of sorts) so as people upgrade they get these cheap phones by default but probably still just use them as phone + text.
So people say the share is dropping yet when you look at the revenue on apps and web usage iDevices are much higher. Suspect many of these Android / Windows phones are basically £50-100 candy bar replacements that are text + calls mainly and many users probably do not know nor care they are Android etc.
Once iphone drops below 10% market share, I expect app developers will begin to prioritise iOS lower than Android/WinPho. After that, iOS is dead in the water.
As app sales/in game purchases etc are such a high percentage of apples income, once they become a nice to have rather than a must have platform for an App to be on, apple will be screwed.
> Once iphone drops below 10% market share, I expect app developers will begin to prioritise iOS lower than Android/WinPho.
Developers target the numbers of phones that are in use, not just the ones that are sold today. The total sales of iPhone since the start of 2011 is around 320 million. The total of all WP8 phone sales seems to be less than 30million.
iPhone's app market is 10 times that of WP8, it will take several years before WP8 could sell enough to get close to that, even if Apple never sold another phone. It is likely that the converged WP8 + RT OS (in 2015) will replace both with something, yet again, incompatible with either, restarting the counter again.
Developers target the ecosystems based on their overall value, not the number of devices. If Apple users spend far more on apps than Android/WP users, iOS will still get a lot of attention.
You also have to remember apps includes tablets too, and iOS has much bigger share in that market (for now).
Developers are looking after income from their apps, not sold devices nor market share. Average iThing user is much more likely to spend money on AppStore than Android or WinPho user. Most of developers report approx. 80% of revenue from iOS, 20% from Android and single sales on WindowsPhone. If you are developer that wants to make money iOS is no brainer choice. When that's estabilished you can look after Android (or WinPho if you're really bored).
"While in some markets in Europe WP may have around 10%, worldwide it is still at the 4% mark,"
Windows Phone is growing rapidly pretty much everywhere - and is a also at over 10% in much of South America for instance...
"and this is with the cheap end of the market and subsidized by Microsoft with $1billion/year plus marketing help."
It doesn't really matter how they get there - they are clearly succeeding....competitors like Google, Samsung and Apple spend similar amounts on advertising too...And of course the Android market is also profitable for both Microsoft and Nokia due to their licensing agreements.
"at this rate it"
MS has been doing smart phones for twice as long as Apple and Google. Over that time they have not really shown any serious market share.
In the beginning, MS were third place to Nokia and Blackberry. Now they're third place to Google and Apple.
Not much change in 12 years...
Buying a 5C now is essentially the same as buying a 5 when the 5S is the latest model. Is there any data comparing the incomes of people who bought the 4S when the 5 was the latest model, or the 4 when the 4S was the latest model?
The incomes difference between the two kinds of market are probably similar (people going for the expensive bling vs. people going for the cheapest bling), but the 5C is considered different to the 5 by analysts, probably confirming everybody's suspicions of analysts.
Apple are still selling a load more phones. Market share drops because the overall volume has increased (mostly at the low end) - every phone these days is a smart phone. Apple sell 1000 phones in a market of 2000 and have 50% market share - fast forward and Apple sell 3000 phones in a market of 12000 phones and their market share is 25% despite them selling 3x more phones.
Would be interesting to see market share by VALUE or by PROFIT. Android and Windows Phone may sell a lot of £50-150 phones at little or no profit while Apple sell premium phones at £500. It's a bit like trying to compare sales of Porsche to sales of Vauxhall and Ford.
@AC"Would be interesting to see market share by VALUE or by PROFIT"
If it showed profit or value, it wouldn't be market share though. Market share is defined as a percentage of unit sales relative to the total of the market place.
Apple had traditionally "owned" the profitability crown in the smartphone market, but that has passed to Samsung now. Whether Apple can recover that position from its Korean rival is probably too soon to say for sure. But its profitability is trending downward, driven by lower ASPs of all the iPhone models. Samsung's profitability on the other hand is trending upward.
I don't think Samsung is concerned that its financial results are achieved from a mix of high, middle and low end devices. While the higher end of the the market (primarily Western nations) is showing signs of approaching maturity, the burgeoning middle and lower ends are exhibiting massive growth still.
Apple had traditionally "owned" the profitability crown in the smartphone market, but that has passed to Samsung now.
(citation needed)
Where has it been shown that Samsung's profit generated on the "smartphone" lines exceeds Apple's by any metric? Samsung sell a shitload of landfill Android, as well as their premium product, so I think it highly unlikely that Samsung "own the profitability crown". However, I am willing to be convinced ...
on things like TV, and its white goods (Washing machines etc) are nowhere near that of its phones.
Thus their lower margin drags down the overall margin of the whole company.
There might even be a case for saying that their Phone biz is subsidising their other product divisions.
As for build quality, my other half had a Galaxy 5 for about a week. She dropped it from about 3ft in height and it is useless as a phone now. No signs of external damage but it won't sync with a network no matter what SIM is put in it.
She's not impressed one little bit and is especially miffed at me because I persuaded her to have one over an iphone. Guess what it is in an early christmas pressie from me? We are trying to get the Galaxy replaced under insurance but that might take a few weeks.
What a crap. Market share CAN be about units, it MUST not. For example in the server market, market share is normally measured in income not units. Otherwise is was impossible for MS to have a (out of my head) share of about 30 ~50% while (nearly) all big clouds are running Linux only. Linux server market share is exclusively about ENTERPRISE Linux distros. For the proprietary unices the (unit) market share is almost not measurable, but in income they still count (just like mainframe).
If market share was about income instead of units Apple is probably on top, followed by Samsung. Android is invissible and Google's mobile revenue is (black?) magic.
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