Apple besting Samsung
in smartphone market
Ping!
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Posted on 03/07/2015 11:16:08 AM PST by Star Traveler
Apple topped Samsung in smartphone sales for the first time since 2012, selling 74.8 million units in the fourth quarter of last year, surpassing Samsung as the No. 1 smartphone maker globally.
Apple's success was driven by huge demand for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the U.S. and in China, according to research firm Gartner.
Samsung's performance in the smartphone market deteriorated further in the fourth quarter of 2014, when it lost nearly 10 percentage points in market share," Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, wrote in a report released Tuesday.
"Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung's share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure."
Part of the problem for Samsung: The market is bifurcating. Apple commands the high-end, aspirational customer while a fast-rising crop of Chinese phone makers are snapping up the more price-conscious buyer. Samsung is caught in the middle.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Free Enterprise and Capialism is GREAT in America!
Well, we’re back again, this time in the category that the mod wanted ... :-) ...
APPLE IS CLOSER THAN EVER TO BECOMING A TRILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/todays-top-tech-2-11-15/
After blasting through the fabled $700 billion ceiling yesterday to become the most valuable publicly traded company ever, Apple shares are shooting even higher today. Before the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, many pundits—including we at WIRED—questioned whether Apple had run up against a wall of market saturation. Its record-setting earnings this past quarter erased that idea, and investors are now wondering how high Apple can go. As tech analyst Ben Thompson points out today, Apple is now moving into every aspect of our lives—health, home, car, and wrist among them. At this rate, a $1 trillion valuation almost seems reasonable.
The epic quest to become the first $1 trillion company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2015/02/27/the-epic-quest-to-become-the-first-1-trillion-company/
There are plenty of reasons why Apple could become the first $1 trillion company. First of all, there’s the iPhone, still the best business on the planet ever. Then, there’s the company’s unprecedented ability, Steve Jobs or no Steve Jobs, to bring new high-end products to market each year, and make them all part of a networked mega-ecosystem. In just the past year, Apple has introduced the Apple Watch, Apple Pay, Apple HealthKit and Apple HomeKit – four potentially big innovations with the ability to invent (or re-invent) huge industries.
But there’s one good reason why Apple won’t be the first company to $1 trillion – and that’s because it’s too easy to fall into the trap of extrapolating from the recent past to predict the future.
Think back to the end of the last tech boom in the 1990s, when Microsoft, Cisco and Intel were stock market darlings and all of them attained stock market valuations of over $500 billion. At its peak, Microsoft had a market valuation of nearly $620 billion – comparable to Apple’s valuation back in August 2012 – and everyone thought the “Wintel” PC dynasty was unstoppable. And then the dot-com tech collapse happened in March 2000, changing everything we thought we knew about the Internet.
Fifteen years ago, then, we got it all wrong but it wasn’t our fault. Back in 1999, of course, Google was only a year old, Facebook was not even a dream yet in a Harvard dorm room, and the first iPhone was still nearly a decade away from being introduced. For much of 1999, Apple sported a nifty market capitalization of under $10 billion, less than that of either Dell or Nokia. Who would have guessed that Apple’s market cap had the potential to grow 100-fold over 15 years?
We’re back again ... :-) ...
Additive manufacturing will change everything and the technology is only now starting to hit its exponential curve.
Yes, that will change everything ... no doubt. But there is a difference between a Trillion dollar industry and a Trillion dollar company ... :-) ...
Wise to be cautious. Just as anti-Apple bigots go to extremes with lies about Apple failing, you can't predict the future with any precision based on the present.
As long as Apple diversifies while preserving an ecosystem where their products seamlessly work together, Apple Inc. can continue growing. Perhaps they can branch out into sports apparel and exercise equipment, that's a big growth area for them when wedded to their software and electronics. Electric-motorized bicycles can be a growth area with their expertise (something that Ford recently became invested in, will offer them in their dealer outlets). Why not mobility equipment for seniors, what with the aging Baby Boomer group? Apple can continue to grow for the foreseeable future.
I'm not picking a fight here, but frankly on that issue, I side with the Mod. This and similar articles are FR chat, not FR news (which should be conservative interests: political, social, financial, even philosophical, but not day-to-day business fortunes of a particular company). I would hate to see FR news threads double, with fans of every company posting about the stuff that matters to them... and not so much to everyone else. So IMHO Apple business news is not FR news, it's FR chat, even if it rates as "news" in other venues.
As one who has Apple gear and likes it a lot, I'm of course interested in their fate -- I want them to stick around. I'm very happy they're doing well, since it means my MacMini and iDevices will continue to get legendary Apple service. Indeed, I wish very much that Microsoft and Fujitsu and Samsung and Dell and the other manufacturers of my other gear had as bright a future as Apple's. *sigh* But I don't care about every twist and turn as they continue their meteoric rise. I have no Apple stock, so what their stock does, or what their valuation is, doesn't affect me except very indirectly.
I vote for keeping Apple threads in FR chat, unless for some reason the company does something that falls into political, social, or other "core conservative" areas, where it's clearly news of likely interest to a majority of FR members.
A little off-topic, but related to Apple in regards to diversifying and growing.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ford-mode-pro-e-bike/
Here is a bike that Ford is building. Works with a linked smartphone and sensors, monitoring your heart-rate etc. and kicks in the electric motor when you’re tired of pedaling. Proximity sensors to warn of cars around you, handlebar grips vibrate for turn-by-turn directions for routes. It’s great to see an American company innovating. This is an area where Apple can jump in and compete with Ford.
I see you’re having more fun with your love for Apple.
But, like I said in ‘that’ other discussion, Apple is a bubble, which is being primed to burst, some time soon.
Still, Apple has not reached the ‘all time high’ that Microsoft achieved in 1999.
However, keep your money and love invested in Apple. I will be the first to come on here and say, “I told you so”, after you’ve lost the shirt on your back.
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LOL ... more APPLE-HATER CULT talk ...
This is the same thing that has been said for the LAST THIRTY YEARS. I know, because I’ve heard it.
You would think that you APPLE-HATER CULT members could get something right in the last thirty years! ... :-) ...
As I told you in that other thread, adorno, Microsoft in December of 1999 selling at 70 times earnings, was a true bubble, part of the DOT COM BUBBLE. Apple is selling only at 16 times earnings and by every definition is NOT A BUBBLE and in fact is selling far below the other members of the consumer electronics industry which sell at 27-55 times earnings. Amazon.com sells at over 500 times earnings. . . eBay is currently selling at over 1100 times earnings. . . if you want to talk about true bubbles. But you really don't. You want to lie and distort facts about Apple.
The only time it might belong in FR News would be if Obambi or Congress did something effecting Apple and Taxes that has an overall impact on the country. Then, and only then, would I post it in FR News. All others go in FR Chat.
For example when Tim Cook appeared before the US Senate to testify on Taxes, and the overall impact the tax structure had on US Business, that was NEWS. . . and rightfully belonged in FR News, not FR Chat. . . and that's where I Posted it.
The Apple bubble is in the market cap vs iPhones, which is their one product keeping them riding so high. As such, it is much worse bubble than anything that occurred during the dot.com bubble. iPhones are just a version of smartphones, and there is nothing that iPhones can do that the others can’t do. Apple is due for a major correction, and the repercussion from that, will be astronomical.
If earnings vs market cap was all there was to it, you’d be right. But, Apple’s bubble is in the irrational exuberance that was created by the iPhones becoming so popular, and that popularity won’t continue forever. When people start deciding that they don’t need to upgrade every 1 or 2 years, Apple will be doomed, and when people also realize that, they don’t really need iPhones for what they do with smartphone, then, the Apple bubble will burst with a very loud boom.
But, like I said, you can keep your money in Apple. It’s your money. I don’t gamble.
You keep ignoring all the other multi-billion dollar products that Apple makes. . . which I listed for you in another thread. . . but you are that ignorant. . . and apparently stupid because you cannot and will not learn. You keep whipping your dead horse. People have been claiming the imminent demise of Apple for 39 years. . . and they've been wrong for 39 years. Keep going. Apple's stock went up by 1,800 percent BEFORE the iPhone was released. So you're wrong there. It has gone up a huge amount since then as well on EXCELLENT fundamentals, it is now up 4,200 percent. . . not on a bubble of hype and exuberant expectations by on actual REAL earnings.
So while you sat on your high horse, believing in your fictitious bubble, you missed out on the biggest run up of real value in Stock market history. . . all because you just have to hate Apple. . . and don't understand at all what a bubble really is. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, adorno, especially when it is completely WRONG!
And what you think you know, is completely wrong.
You keep whipping away but you have not one whit of fact underlying your claims. NONE AT ALL.
Apple iPhone takes smartphone market share from Android around the world
I guess I missed that one ... I was in the hospital then, being punched with needles by nurses and having all sorts of things done. I’m not sure how I missed it though, because I was using my iPad while I was there ... :-) ...
Samsung makes Smartphones, tables, Washers, Dryers, Refrigerators, etc, and hardly any of these work together.
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