image Tom's Guide
Posted on 04/18/2018 11:54:17 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple remained the most profitable smartphone brand through the fourth quarter of 2017, according to a new market research report.
The Cupertino tech giant managed to capture 86 percent of the total smartphone market profits Q4 2017, even though the premium handset segment didn’t grow as expected, according to a new report by Counterpoint Research (via CNBC).
Additionally, the iPhone X accounted for 21 percent of total revenue and 35 percent total of the profits made by the entire industry in the fourth quarter — allowing Apple to grow about 1 percent, year-over-year. That’s despite the fact that the premium flagship was only available for two months of the quarter, Counterpoint noted.
For context, the iPhone X generated about five times as much profit as more than 600 Android manufacturers in the same time period combined. And the device isn’t done doing well for Apple.
“The share of the iPhone X is likely to grow as it advances further into its life-cycle,” Counterpoint Analyst Karn Chauhan said. “Additionally, the longer shelf life of all iPhones ensured that Apple still has eight out of top 10 smartphones, including its three-year-old-models.”
The analyst added that these devices generate much more profits than those made by competing OEMs. Some of those competitors include Chinese manufacturers like Huawei, ZTE and Oppo, who are all stepping up their brand by including more devices aimed at the premium sector (which, as a result, are selling for a higher average price). Still, Apple and Samsung lead the industry in terms of total profits.
Apple CEO Tim Cook previously stated in an earnings call that the iPhone X was the company’s biggest seller through every week of the critical holiday shopping season. He added that the popularity of the device continued into February and wasn’t restricted to the holiday period.
Of course, Apple does not break down iPhone sales on a per-device basis. But in February, the company announced that it sold 77.3 million iPhones, about a 1 percent decline from the previous year. On the other hand, the higher price of this year’s lineup did manage to drive higher profits and revenue.
Counterpoint’s research seems to run contrary to the handful of reports that suggest Apple has seen mediocre sales and low demand for its flagship iPhone X.
While not all of those reports are of verifiable accuracy, they still line up with an overall industry-wide trend of declining smartphone sales. As CNBC points out, the global market has likely already peaked due to longer replacement cycles. Due to that, Apple’s Services business is slated to dethrone the iPhone and become the firm’s largest driver of revenue growth.
While Apple’s smartphone sales may be slowly declining overall, it seems that its flagship product isn’t quite done making money for the firm.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Safety, quality AND PRIVACY sell. Crap, not so much.
When talking about profits this should be expected. It has nothing to do with Android being crap, it has everything to do with it commoditizing the entire OS aspect of a phone. Phone SALES are dominated by Android, 80%+ of the phone market.
...and I wouldn’t hang on to iOS being very good with privacy either, it has as many security vulnerabilities being reported monthly as do others.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Great biz model - sell a product so good that customers will pay a premium... and you capture almost all profits in an industry.
“In the meantime, everyone else has devices 3-5 years ahead of crApple’s stuff. ”
They have to in order to run the complete virus load and collect and sell all user data.
There are 1.3 BILLION Apple devices in the world right now, TexasGunLover, which hold the highest resale value of all computers and mobile devices. . . and IBM is switching over entirely to Apple devices and finding they are saving $535 per computer compared PCs when using Macs.
IBM says it is 3X more expensive to manage PCs than Macs
Up to $535 saving per MacIBM today told the record-setting seventh Jamf Nation User Conference that it is saving even more money by deploying Macs across the company than it thought: each Mac deployment saves the company up to $535 over four years, in contrast to the $270 per Mac it claimed last year.
That’s a hugely significant statistic for any Mac user and follows extensive use of the platform by IBM. IBM VP of Workplace as a Service, Fletcher Previn, told the conference that 90,000 employees are now using Macs, up from 30,000 in 2015. 100,000 of IBM’s global workforce will be using Macs by the end of the year, he said, and the number is climbing. (That number was over 225,000 at the end of 2017—Swordmaker)
There are lots of reasons for this, not least that better OS software means Apple needs to update its systems far less often than Microsoft updates Windows. "We have to go out and manage the Mac environment 104 fewer times a year than PC,” Previn said. (Emphasis mine—Swordmaker). . ."
. . ."This is fully in line with experiences shared in 2015, when Previn said just 5 percent of IBM’s Mac users needed to call the help desk; In contrast, an astonishing 40 percent of PC staff request tech support help. At IBM last year (2015) just 25 staff supported 30,000 Macs.
That's working out to over $50 million dollars per year internal savings on tech support after getting rid of the Windows computers and non-Apple mobile devices devices for over 220,000 employees, Texas.
So, I guess I will go with the professional people who REALLY do work with the real numbers of Apple devices in the Enterprise and publish their results, not some made up claims.
Apple devices have the lowest repair rate and the highest user satisfaction rate of all computers and mobile devices. In the same article linked above, IBM "reports a hugely impressive '91 percent user satisfaction' from its Mac users."
So, Tex, I think you really do not know what you are talking about.
THEY'RE the reason for the profitability. iEvil's balance sheet is getting fat on THEIR dime. Talk about clueless.
Oh please, judging people on what phone they use is juvenile. Apple makes great quality products as do many of their competitors. I have owned several Android devices (still have a couple) and had fun rooting them, loading various mods, etc. My next device might be another Android. But for now I have an iPhone. It is simple and just works. My phone is not a hobby, it's a phone. It's significantly more reliable and simpler than Android devices I have used. Yes, Apple's "walled garden" is too limiting for many but it works well for the vast majority of their users. And Apple's stand on security and privacy is pretty strong compared to Google/Alphabet.
Oh, as to your claims of 3-5 year lead, where is it? it certainly isn't in the processors:
The speed of the six core processor in the Apple iPhone 8 and X is FASTER than the basic Intel i5 used in many laptops, and in fact it's faster than the Intel quad core i5 used in Apple's own introductory priced MacBook Pro, which is no slouch.
On the iPhone X, the Neural Net processor makes 600 Billion decisions per second. There is NOTHING in the Android universe that is even close to that. Not one has anything close to the Secure Enclave or end-to-end, full device 256bit AES encryption done by a dedicated encryption processor that is entirely separate from, and untouchable by the application processor. Android leaves encryption to third-party applications as a bolted on after-thought. Even Samsung's Knox was found to have kept the encryption key in an unprotected, unencrypted clear text library where it is easily found. . . while Apple does not even keep the key on the device.
Cameras? There are two Android devices that compete with Apple's photo gear. . . the top of the line Samsung and Google's Pixel 2. That's it. . . and among the three, it becomes a matter of taste about which has the better approach, and produces the better photos. Most professionals choose the iPhone, which has been used for several dozen magazine covers and even been used to shoot several full-length feature films.
Right now, some Android phones claim to come with 5G cellular capability. . . but the build-out of 5G is non-existent on the cellular network because the standards have not yet been set. That means it is a USELESS advertising hype feature. Nobody knows exactly what those standards are going to be when it will finally be rolled out, and what will be required in handsets to work with those standards. Apple's iPhones will work with every cellular signal currently in use around the world. . . so any claim to the contrary is bogus.
How about screens? The PLATINUM standard in screen testing, Displaymate gives iPhone X “highest ever” rating with an A+, it's far better than any screen ever put on any Android phone, ever.
As for Macs, you've obviously never read the PC magazine reviews where they rated the Apple Macs as by far the best computers on which to run Windows. I used to run NINE DIFFERENT operating systems in Virtual Machines simultaneously on my maxed out iMac, including THREE different installs of Windows, MS-DOS, UNIX, two of OSX, and two different flavors of Linux. . . to better serve the needs of my client base.
I'm semiretired, I still run a network of Macs in an office for a large Dental office where we have had exactly two fail in more than twenty years, one due to a failed hard drive, and the other one was a brand new iMac that was a serial Logic Board killer, which was finally replaced by Apple after something in it succeeded in killing THREE replacement logic boards in less than three months (under warranty, thankfully)—Apple tech support was persistent in replacing logic board after logic board!— but that is among over 150 various model Macs, from original Mac 6200s to the latest MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. Our experience is you have to beat them to death with a Mack Truck. . . and I am not talking at all about numerous iPhones and iPads used by the staff. All of our equipment was either donated to a non-profit or sold at the end of its useful life to us. . .for a good price . . . or went on to another useful life at a non-profit. We typically kept a Mac in service for five years before replacing it.
Mac Screens? Apple had IPS screens long before any Windows PCs. Apple iMacs come in 4K and 5K screens. . . When introduced the 5K iMac was sold at a price less than it cost for just the monitor in 5k for PCs.
Why is it that the other manufacturers copy the designs of Apple?
So, Texas, exactly where is the tech in Android phones that is 3 to 5 years ahead of the Apple iPhones? Where? How about in PCs? Where?
Vulnerabilities do not translate to EXPLOITS, fuzzy. There is a big difference. Look for the actual exploits.
There are several million actual exploits in the wild on Android and the number that have broken into the wild on iOS are countable on the fingers of ONE HAND.
The real problem with Android is security updating and OS updating.
iOS users are typically running the latest update. In fact, right now, over 75% of Apple iOS users are on iOS 11. That means the iOS users are patched to the latest and greatest security available. . . and fewer than 5% on running an iOS version lower than iOS 10.
On the other hand, Android users are not. Android, not so much. Less than 5% of Android users are on Android 8, Oreo, and in fact only half a percent are on Android 8.1, the latest version. The vast majority of Android users are on Android 6 and 7, but 23% are still on Android 5! Almost 16% are on Android versions lower than that! How can these users be kept up-to-date on security to protect them from malware, much less patch vulnerabilities, Fuzzy?
Uh, Fred, they may be built by the same contract assemblers, but they are not the same components and they are not the same assembly lines. Nor are they being built to the same standards. It they were, those other devices would last as long and as reliably. They don't. Nor do they have the same level of functionality. You may THINK they do, but I assure you they do not. Quality has value.
That is where your error is.
You seem to think that the same people, the original Apple users, have bought every one of the 1.3 BILLION Apple devices now currently operational in the world. . . without adding any new users. That is not the case, Fred.
Most of us have come from the ranks of PC-Windows and Android users and we KNOW the vast improvement in quality and usability we gained when we moved to Apple products. We know BOTH worlds. You don't.
Unfortunately, most device manufacturers not named Apple pretty much abandon their devices after the sale. I had an HTC handset on AT&T that never received a single update. HTC makes great stuff that's built like a tank, but what's the point of building a phone that will last 5 or more years if you don't provide support? With many if not most Android devices, you probably get 1 update, then you are "end of life". They give cute names to the new OS, cookies, candy, whatever, and tell you of cool new "must have" features, but to get them you either have to buy a new device or root the one you own and DIY, if there is a way to do it at all. Meanwhile, my almost 5 year old iPad Air just updated to IOS 11.3. Same generation tablet from Samsung (Tab 3) would still have outdated 4.2.x or 4.4.x OS.
YOU haven't. You didn't bother reading what I wrote. Did you? You haven't supported hundreds of thousands of Macs. EVER. Not even close. You are lying.
But, as I told you and linked to an article siting the fact that prove that IBM HAS supported hundreds of thousands of Macs and other Apple hardware and found what you are claiming is simply NOT FACTUAL. I just told you they are factually doing what you are lying about doing, because you have never, ever tried it.
You are LYING. You are lying when you say "Apple devices fail far more often than all other devices put together."
So, TexasGunLover you are LYING. You've never probably ever allowed a Mac to ever be installed on your network, have you? I repeat, you really don't know what you are talking about.
Stop paying for marketing, and start looking at the underlying technologies.
IBM is not paying for MARKETING. They are paying for PERFORMANCE and saving over $50 MILLION DOLLARS IN IT COSTS PER YEAR over what they had been paying supporting CRAPPY WINDOWS COMPUTERS.
I see you did not read what I posted to you. Otherwise you'd have read what a qualititative difference means.
The screen on the iPhone X is a screen other devices have had for 4+ years.
More proof you did not bother to read, or you have a reading comprehension problem.
The screen on the iPhone X is NOT the same as the screen Android phones have had for 4+ years. Otherwise why wouldn't Samsung and the others have not been using it? Why would the organization that TESTS screens have said what it did about the PERFECTION and SUPERIORITY of the Apple iPhone X screen? No previous OLED screen has gotten better than a "B" rating due to too intense color saturation problems.
"Displaymate gives iPhone X “HIGHEST EVER” rating with an A+"The Best Smartphone Display
- The iPhone X is the most innovative and high performance Smartphone display that we have ever tested.
- what makes the iPhone X the Best Smartphone Display is the impressive Precision Display Calibration that Apple developed that transforms the OLED hardware into a superbly accurate, high performance, and gorgeous display!!
I will probably be upgrading to an iPhone X in another month or two. It sort of breaks my heart because my current iPhone from two years ago still works flawlessly and doesn't have a flaw - still looks shiny and brand new like the day I got it. Battery remains strong too despite constant charging. But technology moves on and the iPhone X has many compelling reasons for me to upgrade my perfectly good iPhone 7+.
No doubt whatsoever that the Apple iPhones are the best smartphones in the market. No other device even comes close.
“iEvil’s balance sheet is getting fat on THEIR dime. Talk about clueless.“
Indeed. Google is getting fat by selling your private information because you thought you’d save money. Touché
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