Posted on 02/19/2016 1:06:45 AM PST by Swordmaker
Apple lost market share in the final months of 2015
Apple is losing market share to handset makers in emerging markets, according to Gartner research
Sales of Apple Inc.'s iPhone dropped for the first time in the fourth quarter last year, as the company lost market share in an arena that is increasingly being taken over by phone makers in developing countries.
In the final quarter of 2015, iPhone sales dropped 4.4%, cutting Apple's AAPL, -1.90% market share to 17.7% from 20.4% in the same quarter of 2014, according to technology research company Gartner.
Overall, global smartphone sales for all manufacturers grew 9.7% quarter-on-quarter, the slowest rate of growth since 2008, Gartner found.
"Low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, and strong demand for premium smartphones, continued to be the driving factors," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner, in a statement. "An aggressive pricing from local and Chinese brands in the midrange and entry-level segments of emerging markets led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones."
Analysts had expected a slowdown in iPhone sales in the company's first quarter, partly due to muted enthusiasm over Apple's most recent iPhone 6s model. Apple CEO Tim Cook also pointed to challenges related to the strong dollar DXY, -0.11% as well as weakened currencies in Brazil, Russia and China, as the company brings in two-thirds of its revenue from overseas.
Apple's own numbers do not match those provided by Gartner. The company said it sold 74.77 million iPhones in its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 26, surpassing sales of 74.5 million units a year earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
This time Apple reported their ACTUAL iPhone sales figures for the 1st quarter of 2015 as 74.77 million units. That quarterly report ended five days short of the end of the Calendar quarter on December 26, 2015.
s. Yet, here we have Gartner, publishing its GUESSTIMATEs on how many iPhones Apple sold in the last quarter of 2015, which Gartner guesses was only 71.526 million units! How STUPID do they think people are to believe their GUESS over the accurate figures provided in Apple's AUDITED Financial 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission?
Gartner wants us to believe that Apple sold 3.25 MILLION FEWER iPhones than they said they did in an audited report?!?!? Who do then think they are going to fool with this ridiculously low guesstimate, when it is easy to see the accurate numbers???
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Gartner’s rather behind the times in calling Korea a developing country.
All phones that cost a lotvarebgoing to see their sales crash because the mobile phone companies stopped subsidizing phones.
My whole cost for a 64 gigabite Iphone 6 was $300’ no additional payments. Next time the cost goes up to $950.
I and others will think long and hard and wait much longer before dropping a grand for a phone.
Instead of every other year I might wait 4 years for the next phone and I will likely drop my IPhone for a mid level Android.
I only went IPhone for face time, but I can do similar things if the family all get androidsbwith face time types of apps free from Google play.
Apple needs more terrorists buying iPhones.
I hear they are really secure..... from law enforcement.
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