Posted on 05/14/2014 6:44:42 PM PDT by Swordmaker
A customer satisfaction survey ranking smartphones features and desirability in South Korea awarded Apple's iPhone 5s a widening lead over domestic rivals including LG, Samsung and Pantech.
Marketing Insight, a South Korean firm that tracks users satisfaction rankings across a variety of factors, compared Apple's iPhone 5s against Samsung's latest Galaxy S5, LG G Pro2, Nexus 5 and other models. While Apple overall was significantly above average across every category, Samsung was ranked below average in design, display, processing speed, multimedia speed, size and weight, usability, response to touch, latest tech and UI design.
Samsung's new Galaxy S5 flagship was ranked below iPhone 5s across the board, but it also came in below average in comparison to other Android products in terms of design, and ended up in sixth place overall, behind 2012's iPhone 5, the last two generations of LG's G2 flagship and the Google-branded Nexus 5, which is also built by LG.
The survey involved 9,397 consumers who purchased a smartphone during the 6 months between October 2013 and April 2014. "The gap of satisfaction between Apple and domestic products has rather increased," noted a report by the Korean language Ohmy News.
"The satisfaction score of Apple products was 798 out of 1000," the site noted, "which made Apple take the first place with almost 200 points of gap between domestic products. LG, Samsung and Pantech had gained 609, 600, and 577 respectively, which are of more or less the same score."
The survey noted that nearly 90 percent of iPhone users reported being "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their purchase, while only about 50 percent of domestic makers got a similar ranking.
The site quoted Marketing Insight as observing, "Considering that the products satisfaction usually decreases as the longer time has based since the product released, the score of iPhone 5s is amazing."
The report further noted, "Galaxy S5 obtained a humiliating result as it failed to get ahead of LG G Pro2 in any sector in the comparison between the representative models of Samsung and LG, released this year."
Samsung recently sacked its head of mobile design in the wake of the Galaxy S5's cool reception. The company took great pains to cherry pick lines from lines from lackluster reviews for its latest ad, and failed to impress users with a company blog posting describing the phone's inspiration.
Apple takes great pride in reporting awards for customer satisfaction, including its first place standings in the latests American rankings by J.D. Power and Associates, which listed iPhone as the top smartphone on all four top U.S. carriers and iPad highest in overall consumer satisfaction for tablets.
Last October, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook stated, "We're winning with our products in all the ways that are most important to us: in customer satisfaction, in product usage and in customer loyalty," drawing a contrast with the market share and volume shipment or activation numbers focused upon by Apple's critics and competitors.
I also think most engineers have PCs at home because they can tinker with them easier. I thinking sharing data between an android phone and a PC is easier than sharing between a PC and an Apple device. I’m thinking engineers also like tinkering with the android phones also.
I’m just glad there is variety and you can pick the device that suits you best. I’m guessing I will have to upgrade to a new tablet in the next year. I didn’t have any choices when I first got my iPad, but now there are so many choices!
The Apple fanatics will always give high praise to their preference. There is no rhyme or reason to it: it’s just that, Apple has a cult following. It’s like blacks voting for a black candidate, no matter how distant that candidate is from what’s good and prudent for those voters.
Ask a Muslim how he ranks his religion against all religions, and the answer will be 100% Muslim.
Apple has a cult following, no matter where they are.
As far as the merits of iPhone being better than the S5, that’s a bunch of hooey. Most other smartphones on the market in the last 2-3 years, are much better than even the the 5S. That is why Apple is scrambling to catch up with the market for screen sizes and resolutions and features.
Yes, you did. You did not limit your statement. . . The creepy ones are those who enter a thread like this one and proceed to gratuitously insult over 500 million people. . . We don't insult YOU! Enjoy your choice.
How many iPhone 5S were sold last quarter? 51 million! More than ANY OTHER smartphone on the market! Show me any other smartphone that includes a 64bit processor and operating system, as well as 64 bit apps. Resolution beyond what the human eye can resolve is mere hype and an unnecessary drag on system resources to drive useless pixels. Apple is in no hurry to introduce larger screens, although they most likely can and will, because they are already selling every iPhone they can make now. They are increasing capacity as fast as they can to keep up with the demand. . . and still have order backlogs in emerging markets. So, no, they are NOT scrambling. Samsung added features to the S5 to match what the iPhone 5S introduced, only they turned out to be unsophisticated, poorly working copies. None of those Android phones beat the speeds of the iPhone 5S and only one, because it has lots of room in it for huge batteries, the Samsung Galaxy Note, exceeds battery life. . . and the S5 does it by becoming DUMB. Great feature.
Reviewers are saying the S5 is a rehash of the S4. . . and offers no reason to upgrade.
Freepmail.
Sword,
I suspect no manufacturer knows yet what screen size is the “right one” - and it is likely that “right” screen size is an individual decision.
I’m sure you know rumors say Apple will introduce a larger screen on the iPhone 6 in September.
I’ve also spoken recently with someone who had a large screen Android and felt it was impractical. He got rid of it and shifted to the iPhone 5S. As a Verizon employee, he could have chosen any of the phones they offered.
In the end, I’m thankful Apple has competitors. Competition makes everyone better and we all benefit. If that means some people prefer the Android system, great. It keeps the world in balance.
Take a look at the next conference of engineers and/or scientists and see what laptop computers they've brought with them. You'd be mightily surprised to see very few with PCs. In fact, take a look at this photo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory "War Room" after the Curiosity Mission had landed on Mars. What's on the desks' of the engineers and Scientists?
Notice that most of the computers these engineers and scientists have chosen to use are Apple Macs. Is that becausre they make these scientists and engineers look cool? or could it be because they're the best tool they've found to buy for their personal use?
How about the JPL Curiosity control center?
REALLY? Which "Wall Street" is that? And who is "they?"
Apple posts Record Quarter, record iPhone sales at 51 millionFirst Quarter 2014
And here are the real expectations of Wall Street. . . And the top row is the REALITY of what Apple delivered. Please, please, PLEASE, find for us the "expectation" on this exhaustive list that is higher than what Apple delivered in iPhone production. You know, the expected numbers of iPhones produced that would make your assertion anywhere near accurate or truthful.
Find any? You won't. Because your assertion simply isn't true.
You do realize that Apple has ALWAYS exceeded their financial guidance both on revenues and profits as well as estimated iPhones to be produced, don't you? Occasionally, some Wall Street Analysts over zealously guesstimate those numbers, but even then, Apple has usually beaten the street. This last Quarter, Apple blew every prediction away. . . by several million iPhones. . . And most more than a BILLION dollars.
What source do YOU have for your claim "they've never had to use the excuse that they didn't have enough supply to meet the demand" because I can find at least ten statements by Apple CEOs Tim Cook and Steve Jobs in their Quarterly Financial Conference Call transcripts where each has said EXACTLY that, "We could have sold lots more, had we been able to meet demand." It's been a chronic problem. . . Increasing production capacity to keep the flow into the retail adequately supplied.
In the quarter before last, Apple was able to sell 51 million iPhones even though the most in demand version, the gold iPhone 5S, was in very short supply, at times more that six weeks back ordered. To quote Tim Cook, "We could have sold a lot more, had we been able to get them produced faster, but the lines were already working at capacity."
So, why the heck does anyone need a smartphone that is only meagerly faster than even the lowest spec smartphone out there? A smartphone doesn't need to be real fast to get the needs of the user met. How fast does a smartphone need to be when a person is texting, or talking on the phone feature, or just viewing Facebook or doing search or e-mail or Twitter, or even viewing a movie? Some features are just meant as marketing poo.
For you, perhaps. However, for your movie. . . The iPhone can handle that movie without a stutter, something I've heard about on the Android phones. Now, do it in a streaming movie to your HD TV in 1080 HD . . . Or, the other reason for high speed. Games. I'm not a game player but the iPhone is the number one game platform in the world.
Data suggests iOS may be the most popular gaming platform of all time
How about editing high definition video. . . Possible on the iPhone and iPad because of native Apple 64 bit APIs that app developers can take advantage of.
I know. . . according to the wisdom of Adorno, that's no significant advantage.
Look, Adorno, No financial analyst worth anything compares consecutive quarter-to-quarter because seasons are different. You just compared the CHRISTMAS quarter to the post christmas quarter and tried to come to a conclusion on CONSUMER numbers... idiocy. You can only compare year over year. That IS spin, based on twaddle. Analyst take wild-eyed guesses. . . and those you quoted were more wild-eyed than usual, and ignored Apple's own guidance which was based on what the company was planning. Why? Who knows? I am an educated as an economist. . . with a minor in FINANCE. YOU obviously are not. Quit trying to spin Apple into being in trouble. It won't work.Every other metric in Apple's financials for last quarter was a record breaker and you are cherry picking one of two that was negative. The other was iPod sales, which are being subsumed onto iPhone and iPad sales.
You also have to look at what was happening in the previous year ago quarter to see what historically was occurring. A year ago, iPads were being stocked into the sales channel. Not so this year. Business Insider states, quoting Apple's CEO Tim Cook in the Apple Financial Conference call:
"For last quarter in particular, he said the company reduced its iPad channel inventory compared to the same quarter last year, so sales were actually in line with the high end of Apple's internal expectations.Speaking on the iPad business as a whole, Cook made some really interesting points to remain bullish. First, he said the iPad is Apple's fastest-growing product in the company's history. Apple has sold 210 million of them so far, which is almost twice as many iPhones Apple sold in the same period of time.
Cook also made a strong case for the iPad in the enterprise market. He cited one study that said 91% of tablets activated in the enterprise are iPads.
Now, Adorno, you can go on ignoring the time-honored, proper way to analyze financial statements by comparing quarters against the previous year's similar quarter, or you can do what you did, compare against the previous completely dis-similar sales of the immediate previous quarter to obfuscate and cry wolf, or you can be honest and do it correctly. I quote you where you state the truth "YoY quarters don't look so bad. . ."an interesting way you comment on the 2nd best quarter of ANY COMPANY in history and bettered only by Apple itself; talk about left-handed compliments! "don't look so bad", my ass!but then you proceed to do the obfuscation with the false comparisons with unlike seasonality. . . comparing a heavy shopping holiday season with a non-holiday season, and try to make a serious conclusion from those mis-applied data, with "the more important trend can be what's happening on a quarter-by-quarter basis, and in that regard, Apple's sales are not that impressive, and in fact, they could be worrying Apple." That is spinning. In fact, that is false.
YoY comparisons are good indicators, but, even they aren't that great for some of Apple's products, with iPhones being the only product that showed good YoY results.
Then you go on with a flat out lie. Macintosh computers are at their highest sales in history. Yet you flat out lie. Why? What point are you trying to distort? Mac Market share is at the highest it has ever been. I repeat, no financial economist looks at quarter over quarter sequentially. They are useless data because of seasonality due to sales trends, tax due dates, and a host of other seasonal effects. You are spinning. The only trends that are useful are year-over-year in the long run when you are talking about companies the size of Apple and markets the size of Smart phones and tablets.
You want to talk about imaginations, you are the one who is imagining things, not me. You are the one having to make up ways to do comparisons that are not mainstream to get the results YOU want, to make your argument. . . and to hide the real facts.
As you so saliently said: "A lot of things are relative to how one wants to view the numbers, especially those from Apple." You want to believe that Apple is in trouble, so you look to see how you can spin the data. You had to compare unlike quarters to do it.
I suggest you look at the chart on Statistica Global Apple iPhone sales from 3rd quarter 2007 to 2nd quarter 2014 (in million units), keeping in mind that Apple's Fiscal Year and its fourth Quarter ends on the last Saturday in September, to really see how irrational you are in trying to compare quarter-over-quarter and expecting to make any kind of rational conclusion based on numbers of product sold or financial results. It is just meaningless.
Incidentally, if you want to worry about a company, you should be worrying about Samsung, LG, and Nokia, not Apple:
Top Five Mobile Phone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, Q1 2014 (Preliminary Results, Units in Millions)
Vendor |
1Q14 Shipment Volumes |
1Q14 Market Share |
1Q13 Shipment Volumes |
1Q13 Market Share |
Year-Over-Year Change |
Samsung |
108.9 |
24.3% |
109.3 |
25.3% |
-0.3% |
Nokia |
50.5 |
11.3% |
61.9 |
14.3% |
-18.4% |
Apple |
43.7 |
9.7% |
37.4 |
8.7% |
16.8% |
LG |
16.0 |
3.6% |
16.2 |
3.8% |
-1.2% |
Huawei |
14.6 |
3.2% |
10.9 |
2.5% |
33.8% |
Others |
214.9 |
47.9% |
196.1 |
45.4% |
9.6% |
Total |
448.6 |
100.0% |
431.8 |
100.0% |
3.9% |
Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, April 30, 2014
Note: Data are preliminary and subject to change. Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.
As you can see, Except Apple and Huwei, they ALL lost market share in quarterly year-over-year data! They should be worrying, not Apple. By-the-way. it came out in testimony and subpoenaed testimony in last month's patent infringement trial that Samsung's vaunted 83 million "smartphones" shipped aren't so smart as 2/3rds of them aren't smartphones at all, but are instead low-end "feature phones," lacking some or all of the capabilities required to be considered smartphones such as the ability to download apps, connect to the internet, use WIFI, etc. That really reduces the numbers of the phones Samsung has been shipping they counted as "smartphones shipped" to under 30 million. All of Apple's phones are smartphones. Just more of Samsung's patterns of untruths.
LOL! The first refuge of the man without facts: devolve to ad hominem attack. Call your opponents names and fling insults. You don't know me. I provided linked information; you spout your unsupported opinion and make claims unsupported by anything. . . opinion flies in the face of history and proper analytic technique so that you can say negative things about the largest market cap company on earth. That's really brilliant, Adorno.
The technology industry is not like the hamburger joints industry, nor like the supermarket industry.
No it isn't, but you don't have a clue what you are talking about when you talk about comparing consecutive quarters, which is a financial and economic fallacy. But Apple does not compete in the low end, commodity phone market either. . . and the consumer electronic market is responsive to the seasonal purchases of the calendar and is NOT a steady market like fast-food or grocery stores with large swings of sales during certain specific cyclic seasons that are known and predictable. Try studying finance. . . the micro-changes in seasonal adjustments based on market forces, which you show you seem to have no clue about, that make comparing quarter to quarter changes in industries affected by such sales meaning less. An extreme example would be comparing fourth quarter sales against 1st quarter sales in the Christmas Tree companies. Meaningless.
The technology industry is a very fast changing industry, and the quarter-by-quarter sales are huge indicators for how a particular tech company is doing, and could provide a pattern for how that company is beginning to fail.
No, this is an industry dominated in one of its major markets by 2 year lock-in contracts, and in others by high initial cost. It's also a market in which people don't change devices like people change socks. They buy and keep their devices for an extended period, especially devices that are not locked to a specific carrier such as tablets that work on WIFI only. . . so the technology is not driven by "I have to upgrade to the latest and greatest as soon as it comes out!" but "Maybe I'll upgrade when my contract expires." or "When I get around to it, I'll buy the next model for myself/ my wife/my husband/my kids/my friend as a gift." There is no imperative to buy like food, gasoline, car parts, clothing, or other commodities.
I showed you that the three major players in smartphones other than Apple were in trouble Year-over-year, Samsung has had issues in the profit area in the last two quarters, showing growth drops, yet YOU focus on the profit leader claiming doom and gloom based on NOTHING but your wishful thinking and hatred for the company. You have posted NOTHING for proof. . . except Quarter over previous quarter which is the sign of an AMATEUR investor. . . who knows nothing about what he is doing.
YOU are claiming that Apple is in trouble because they did not overtop their previous quarter iPad sales. . . but the fact is that quarter was a record breaking quarter for iPad sales. It was not expected to make another record breaking sales in the next quarter which is always the slowest sales quarter of the year!
"iPad sales in the December quarter (2013) were the highest ever recorded by Apple at 26 million, up 14% year over year and 85% sequentially. Forbes Magazine analyst Chuck Jones, April 14, 2014 "Apple's March quarter nothing to get excited about" in his completely WRONG analysis of the soon to be released 2nd Quarter Apple results.Then there is this gem!
"I have not been wrong before about Apple. . ."the perfect Adorno.
That is absolutely HILLARIOUS, Adorno! You were completely wrong in your post when you claimed that Apple was below it's own and Wall Streets expectations! Chuck Jones's article Forbes' article was one of them and he missed the iPhone results by over six million, and his financials were even greater howlers! YOU WERE WRONG!
The emerging markets are not where Apple's future lies. Apple cannot compete against the low price leaders, that being Android phones and Windows phones, and a lot of the cheap Chinese stuff that's coming out in the next few months and years. Apple is stuck with their cult followers, who are willing to pay any price to keep their religion alive. Adorno being wrong as usual
ROTFLMAO!!!! Adorno speaking ex cathedra makes the unilateral claim that emerging markets won'r want to have anything to do with Apple iPhones. . . except that isn't the case. . .
Apple Beats Samsung as Favorite Brand in Emerging Markets,
Even Though They Can't Afford It
By Mark Milian Mar 13, 2014 1:46 PMPeople want what they can't have. For many of those living in emerging markets, that's an iPhone.
Apple is the most desirable mobile-phone brand among inhabitants of emerging markets, according to a report from marketing firm Upstream and researcher Ovum. In the study conducted this year, Apple edged out Samsung Electronics, which was the leader in a separate survey by Upstream last year.
Samsung saw a slight decline in its share of developing-market consumers who favor its phones from 32 percent to 29 percent, according to Upstream. Apple's share jumped dramatically from 21 percent to where Samsung was last year.
The iPhone 5c, geared toward price-sensitive consumers including those in emerging markets, came out in September. As part of that effort, Apple has stepped up its marketing efforts in those countries, putting the company's name front and center.
While that may help elevate the brand, it hasn't necessarily translated into a spate of sales for the 5c. Most countries don't sell phones at a discount with carrier contracts like in the U.S., and at $549, the iPhone 5c is still too expensive for most of the developing world. Those who can afford it often just pay a little bit more for the premium 5s available in gold, which Chinese status-seekers love.
Without creating a much cheaper iPhone, Apple will have trouble reaching consumers in emerging countries, according to Francis Sideco, an analyst at IHS. Call it the iPhone paradox.
The brand halo for Apple is a good thing, but it won't help the company overtake Samsung in sales, at least not immediately. The South Korean electronics giant is the world's largest maker of smartphones partly because it makes low-margin, cheap handsets in addition to Galaxy products. The bright side for Apple is that the new emerging middle classes may switch to iPhones when they can afford them, but industrialization takes time.
In the Upstream study this year, the question posed to the 4,504 consumers in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria and Vietnam was slightly different from last year, as was the emerging markets targeted. In last year's study, people in countries including Brazil, India and Saudi Arabia were asked specifically to disregard price. However, Upstream said the two surveys were analogous.
The chart above shows how perceptions about the top five aspirational brands in the developing world have changed since last year. The bottom three all of which have products on display this week at the CeBIT technology conference in Hanover, Germany are working on low-end phones aimed at emerging markets. Taiwan's HTC is slowly building up its brand. For Nokia and BlackBerry, the picture isn't as rosy.
Show us the prescient shorts you made on Apple which made you rich. I bet you can't because you don't put your money where your big mouth is.
Apple will be punished for their lack of diversity, when their only products have been the iPHone and the bigger iPhone known as the iPad.
Another howler. Do you know how many years people have been predicting such punishment. . . including the years in which Apple had the most growth of any stock in history? Punishment for the same reasons and others. You still don't know a thing about what makes Apple tick.
Apple's devices are not any better than what most of the competition has, and in fact, the competition has left Apple very far behind.
Please list the competitions' phone or tablet that has 64 bit processors, 64 bit operating systems, 64 bit apps, and the competitions' products with faster processor results on benchmarks and graphics. How about the competitions' devices that have working fingerprint sensors for activation? Name ANY competitors' mobile products that are used more on the internet. Don't forget to provide links to your proofs, Adorno. Mere larger size screens, or additional resolution beyond the capability of the human eye to discern the pixels, are NOT proof of being advanced. So prove your assertion these devices are far ahead of Apple's products. The reviewers disagree with you.
When your done with that, try to find a Windows PC that can compete with the latest MacPro in the same price range. . . Try to even build one to similar parts and specs and meet the price point. . . so far, no one has succeeded.
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