Apple passes 'Nokia' Microsoft for ALL their phones, smart and dumb - Bloodbath Results: Apple Oct-Dec Quarter and record iPhone units give it a big milestone (Expanded)

And we start on the final end-of-year results. Apple Q4 results (Calendar quarter, not Fiscal quarter) ie October-to-December sales (Christmas Quarter) were 74.5 million iPhone units. My preliminary quarterly market share for iPhone is 19.2% (up from 12.3% in Q3). Because of the peculiar launch pattern by Apple that produces that huge sales spike for one quarter going from Q3 to Q4, and then essentially flat sales for the next 9 months of diminishing Quarterly market share, the relevant measure with Apple is always the annual comparison. So compared to Q4 of 2013, the unit sales of iPhones are up 46% (better than the industry overall) and the market share is also up from Q4 of 2013 which was 17.8%.


ADDITION Jan 30: I have added the part to the bottom about iPhone 6 models selling to existing vs new customers based on analysis of info released in the the Apple conference call transcript


And we have cause to congratulate Apple. It climbs yet another rung on the ladder of biggest handset manufacturers when all phones are included (smart and dumbphones) as the largest pure smartphone maker. Apple held 3rd largest handset manufacturer title still in Q3. Now as Microsoft reported again declining total (Nokia) handset sales down to 50.2 million units, Apple has jumped Microsoft-Nokia taking the 2nd largest handset maker title with its 74.5 million iPhone units for the Christmas Quarter. Its a pretty safe bet, the lead is so strong for Apple, with Microsoft winding down the dumbphone side of its business (still 80% of its Nokia phones shipped in Q4 were dumbphones not Lumia smartphones) that this 2nd largest ranking is safely in Apple's hands now. Congratulations Apple, really a massive achievement for a pure smarphone maker selling the most expensive line of phones, to become the world's second largest handset maker. The moment they took that ranking was just now, for Christmas 2014. Next up? Samsung haha... (stranger things have happened.. but I'm not yet forecasting Apple could do that feat haha) 

So we now also have the annual numbers. Apple final 2014 unit sales were 192.7 million iPhones, up 26% from 2013 just about the same rate as the industry grew. So I get a preliminary annual market share for the iPhone at 15.2% which is just marginally down from the 15.5% it was in 2013. Apple is safely the world's second largest smartphone maker, far above the 'next tier' where the next biggest is about half Apple's size (Lenovo). But even as the Wall Street iHysteria push silly iPhone world domination stories, no, Apple is not the biggest smartphone maker now. Its not even close. Samsung is the biggest. They sold well over 300 million smartphones in 2014. Yes, they are more than 50% bigger than Apple just on their smartphone business alone (even more of a lead if we count all phones).

The iPhone annual market share for the Bloodbath years has looked like this:
2010 . . . 13.4%
2011 . . . 19.1%
2012 . . . 19.5%
2013 . . . 15.5%
2014 . . . 15.2% (preliminary)

As to all phones, when we include the now rapidly shrinking dumbphone sector, Apple has now hit 10% of all phones sold. Now THAT is a truly staggering stat where the bottom end is selling ultra-basic non-cameraphones at 20 dollars without countract.

I want to mention the humongous profits Apple is making. Good for them. We will NOT discuss the profit angle to Apple's excellence here. I have acknowledged it, but I will not welcome the financial performance discussions to this blog. Don't post such comments, I will delete them. We know its the most profitable public corporation in the history of Wall Street. Good for Apple investors. We won't talk share prices and stock evaluations on this blog. You can talk about other issues about iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watches, iTunes, the App Store ecosystem etc if you want. Don't mention the word 'profit' or any synonyms or share prices or financials, else your comment is mercilessly deleted. Go talk to a Wall Street blog about share prices.

But iPhone pricing is a valid issue to discuss and I take some pride in that I was pushing not just Apple to split its annual product launches from 1 to 2 models per year, and to offer larger screens like Samsung, and pushing for Apple to introduce NFC, and to introduce mobile money (all that BTW for example Nokia had already in 2010 haha so still now it holds true, to see what comes next in an iPhone, look at an old Nokia) but yes, I was urging Apple to pursue higher price iPhones beyond the weird 600 dollar artificial price ceiling they set for themselves for many years. Now luckily finally, last autumn Apple went above those traditional prices to 750 dollars (unsubsidised price) for the iPhone 6 Plus. As I've argued on this blog for many years - including showing the price pyramid - there IS room for more expensive flagship smartphones. And now Apple is reaping the benefits also of that free advice that your trusty iPhone analyst of the CDB blog has offered here for years haha.. Also on the silly stuff. Yeah some analysts went overboard with their iHysteria claiming Apple sells more in China than in the USA. I told my followers on Twitter that the math doesn't work and called them out as the nonsense was being published. Now, what will soon happen (likely now 2015 or latest 2016) is that the Chinese New Year gift-giving season prolongs Apple's sales pattern and expressly helps boost China sales to a China peak. Simultaneously in the USA, the post-Christmas doldrums mean a decline in sales. It IS possible we'll see one quarter where Apple iPhone sales in China pass the USA sales, and the year that happens, it will be in the January-March quarter, not the October-December quarter. And yes, that could happen now in 2015. If not now, very likely next year, as China already sells about twice as many total smartphones as the USA and soon will sell 3 times as many.

A side note. iPod sales are down about 5 million units from the Christmas Quarter of 2013 to now. As we see in the overall smartphone vs tablet market, tablet sales have stalled and phablet-screen size smarthones now outsell tablets. So Apple 'caught the wave' just in time (or arguably just slightly behind the optimal moment) but yes, part of the iPhone 6 spectacular jump in sales was now taken by cannibalizing Apple iPad sales. I am sure Apple knew this was going to happen but still, its an interesting observation. iPad sales grew YoY up to Q4 of 2013 when they hit 26.0 million. Now YoY iPads are down for first Christmas, to 21.4M. Its yet more proof that the future is centered on mobile and a tablet is only an ultra-portable PC and a different animal from a similar large-screen device, the phablet/smartphone.


ADDITION Jan 30 - There was heated debate in the comments about were the iPhone 6 sales going to steal new customers (ie from Samsung) or going to existing iPhone customers (as I had predicted). We have a clear statement in the Apple conference call about that specific fact. Tim Cook said that a 'low teens' level percentage (thats American speak for 12% - 13% type of numbers when you want to be vague) of iPhone installed base has upgraded to the new 6 models. They also said in the conference call transcript that all 4 models are selling very well and the bestselling model is iPhone 6. But in addition to 6 Plus also they specified 5C and 5S are also selling well. So somewhat even type selling not one phone selling half for example. Lets make a quick analysis on 'very favorable terms' to iPhone 6 models. Lets assume the split was 1-2-3-4 so 40% were bestselling model (iPhone 6). Second bestselling model was iPhone 6 Plus at 30% (not necessarily so as its the most expensive model). Then 5C and 5S will have 20% and 10% whichever way you want to divide those. That means 70% of total iPhone sales are 6 models, and 30% are older and cheaper 5 models. 70% of 74.5 million total iPhones sold in Q4 means 52 million.

Now 'low teens' were upgrades to installed base. The installed base was 373 million at the end of Q3. If we take low end of that number, 12% thats 45 million iPhone owners had upgraded to new larger-screen 6 models. Nice. But that mean only 7 million iPhone sales of the new 6 models went to new Apple buyers. Most went to upgrade sales to returning loyal iPhone users. Of that 7 million part was first-time smartphone owners. Only a part of 7 million were 'steals' from rival OS platforms such as Samsung users on Android. As Samsung itself later reported its Q4 numbers and said that while unit sales were down, their Galaxy Note 4 sales were strong, the steals weren't from Samsung's phablet sized Galaxies, probably more were older Galaxy S5 models instead which are now soon a year old models. Probably a part of those steals were from first Lumia large-screen buyers who obviously don't want more dead Windows Phone OS smartphones especially as the Nokia name is disappearing and Microsoft reports their growth is in the bottom end of Lumia line. But yes, the iPhone 6 models have stolen some customers for Apple, but not much from Android and very few if any Android phablet-screen sized rivals. Apple own reporting tells us most iPhone 6 models were sold to their existing base, which makes perfect sense. Its not first-time Apple users who stand in line overnight to get their iToys. The big spike sales is OF COURSE driven by the loyalists who have to attend iChurch every year. Next scheduled iChurch gathering is April for the Midnight Mass of the hailing of the Apple Watch.

PS if you are a fan of all iThings, you will probably enjoy my iDream what I think should be the next industry Apple should go and iRevolutionize.

But yeah. The quarterly results are now coming in. I'll post more as we hear from other Top 10 brands (Microsoft-Nokia is such an irrelevant spec in the market now as they've fallen out of the Top 10 smartphone manufacturers, its not worth its own entry. I'll cover Lumia soon in some blog that includes several smaller news items)

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

falito

We are still awaiting those results. We do know the numbers from a couple of the brands. Huawei, ZTE and Microsoft-Lumia quarterly sales are up from Q3 to Q4 but Blackberry and Xiaomi are down. We wait for more and we'll also get the total industry counts from the big 3 analyst houses soon (IDC, Strategy Analytics and Canalys). We may also get a full year smartphone count from Gartner who for years used to provide quarterly numbers but suddenly stopped releasing those.

So hold on, in a few weeks this will all sort itself out. Microsoft's chances now depend only on Sony performance as we have ZTE's number already. If Sony sold less than 10.5 million, then yes, Microsoft would temporarily step back into Top 10 for one quarter but not the full year. That they can't do. Sony's sales would need to be about 6 million for that miracle to happen and then Sony would have warned that their 41 million target was downgraded to 35 million haha. So it won't be happening. But for the quarter there is still some hope for the Lumia folks. Obviously the usual Nokia Christmas sales bump did not happen. I had projected 12 million Lumia sales for Q4 and missed that number by 1.5 million haha.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Maggan

Strategy is one thing, execution is another thing. I have said repeatedly here that Samsung is not executing well, it is particularly struggling with its marketing.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Lulz

Fair point. I make clear published forecasts in my blog postings from time to time (for free). I reference them broadly and post links about them very much on Twitter when they are made. Then I tend not to change them

When I make a change to my total industry forecast - like when Nokia suddenly announced its mad strategy change - then yes, I recalculate my total industry forecast and publish that.

This is NOT an Apple blog. Just like this is not a Samsung or Nokia or Microsoft blog. I won't bother to go publish a modest change to one player when there is some evolution - but I DO mention it where it is relevant, like for example as a comment within a blog about say the 'Bloodbath update' or in the comments where someone asks me about something like that Kantar market share number that was published.

So for the individual brands, I don't usually publish brand-specific details except when something radical happens (like say Lumia launch).

But on Twitter we can discuss anything and I will then give happily my feeling at that particular point in time. I truly try to give my best and try to remember what is the exact numbers etc, but I may be off by a bit. I try to always also give the link to the latest blog posting that refers to that issue.

I have been talking TOTALLY CONSISTENTLY all last year, without fluctuation, that I expected Apple to have about 14% market share for the year. That did not change until January 2015 with those fresh Kantar numbers so far above what I expected, I did update my Q4 number and that meant it was headed to 190 million rather than 175 million range for iPhone. Since then I do believe I have again been consistently on that number.

But, if there is any confusion, I am VERY accessable both here on the blog and on Twitter. If you feel at all confused, you can always ask me. But my iPhone forecast for 2014 has been consistently 14% ie 175 million for the whole calendar year 2014 until I upped the last quarter now in January. I am confident that is what you will see on all my blog postings last year but do tell me if there was one that didn't say so.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Pekka

That posting on 23 December is my projection of full year 2014 sales, based on first 3 quarter actual sales and my projection of what 4th quarter would be. I estimated Apple to have 14% market share for the full year. Apple had 15%. You want to complain that I was wrong? I was VERY clear it was a preliminary estimate of what the full year will be like.

It is not an Apple forecast of Q4 iPhone sales. It is a summary of the major stats for the full year, based on my THEN CURRENT model. My Apple forecast of 14% for 2014 was first published in July 2014 and I saw no reason to deviate from that, until I saw some HARD FACTS which were the Kantar numbers we saw in January. The moment I did see those, I told my readers on this blog and on Twitter that by the way, my Apple number is a bit too low - and also that the Nokia number I had was a bit too high haha..

That is what I do. I bring the best info I have, always to my readers as soon as I can. And I explain what it is based on, and I tell them if there is a change. But if you honestly Pekka feel that I predicted 14% market share for iPhone and it turned out 15%, that this is bad forecasting, you are in the wrong business. Nobody in this industry is more accurate than me. You won't find anyone who predicted the past 4 years in smartphones for the major brands - CONSISTENTLY this well as I did - or the past 15 years for the mobile industry major trends, for that matter haha.

That blog you refer to from 23 December is not published as a detailed Apple-specific blog. I never mention the 57 million number that you have calculated from that posting. I talk about the industry OVERALL numbers what is the size of the handset market, the operating system installed base, the price pyramid of phones, etc. And yes, also what are smartphone brand market shares for the year. And I was off by one percent on your darling brand. How dare you come here and bitch about that one percent?

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Lullz]

@Tomi

Thanks for the reply. Btw, did you notice that Apple pretty much predicted something like 60-65 Million iPhones for the current quarter? That's clearly noticeable from what they told us about the revenues. That would hint iPhone sales of 230-280 Million for the year 2015.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Lultz

That is always a dilemma for major industry players of scale, should they pursue profits or should they pursue market share. That was for example what Nokia said when their total handset market share was hitting 40% in the mid 2000s decade, that they would stop growing market share and would focus on growing profits instead. It is a choice by management if you are big enough.

In the smartphone world (like all computing) there is the added element of the ecosystem, the operating system and what it could empower. Apple knows this and in the PC era they were the only successful PC maker who did both the OS and the hardware. Their rivals saw Microsoft take most of the profits while PC makers became thin-profit box-movers. But Apple went on a market share race which almost bankrupted the company.

I understand that Apple has very cold feet about market share. It almost killed them once. But in tablets and MP3 players Apple had held far bigger market shares than the under 10% they had on Macs, and Apple did this profitably. That is where it breaks my heart, that Apple has the industry's best loyalty, a massive iOS ecosystem, and they abandon most of the market share that would be theirs for the taking.

Apple did give us the phablet. It dramatically boosted Apple sales. This is obvious now. Why didn't Apple do this 3 years ago when people started begging them for it? If that boost in iPhone sales powered by phablet screen sizes was done in 2011 not 2014, Apple today would stand at 20% market share not 15% on an annual basis. But in the next 3 years even with these phablets Apple can no longer recover to 20%. If they tried, they could maybe get half way there.

So this is my frustration. For LG or Sony or HTC it doesn't matter. They don't own their own OS. Apple does. Apple could have had a far bigger (more relevant) slice of the future. No, they could never be biggest, that was going to be Android anyway because Apple refused to license its OS. But if Apple ends up with 10% of all phones sold in year 2020, and Android has say 80%, many developers will stop bothering with iOS, EXACTLY how it happened with the Mac. This is history now repeating, which Apple had the keys to change, and it so makes me cry inside to see them doing the same mistakes they did in the past. No, Apple should not fight for the 100 dollar price segment, I don't mean that. I do mean that iOS could easily power 20% to 25% premium price phones and gadgets in the world, rather than 10%. If Apple had 20% and Android 70% then almost all developers would always include iOS. Slightly smaller but richer users. But if the difference is nearly 10 to 1, thats a clear no-brainer. Of course do Android, but don't bother with iOS. This is my frustration with the choices Apple makes now to maximize short-term profits at the cost of long-term sustainable business from market share.

Sony always made the best VCR in every generation with the Betamax. They also had the best profits. But they lost the war as their market share was not enough to sustain the race. Eventually Sony joined VHS. Profits and huge customer loyalty is not enough if your market share becomes too small. 10% is a dangerous level. 20% would be a safe level. And iPhones priced to take 20% haha, Apple would still be the most profitable company on the planet today.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[AndThisWillBeToo]

@Tomi
"Or why not reference the ADJUSTED forecast I made AFTER we learned that Nokia's CEO decided to burn some platforms?"

Are we still talking about your forecast that I linked? You wrote it on March 10th, full month after Feb 11th and your analysis was fully based on Nokia gifting away its market share and ending up to 12% by Q4 (your most accurate forecast you have referred to several times). You knew that Apple will steal the owners of osborned Symbian phones. That was the basis off your forecast. Check it yourself:

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/03/preview-bloodbath-2-electric-boogaloo-the-smartphone-wars-in-year-2011-will-be-bloodier-still.html

[Tomi T Ahonen]

LeeBase

You write "Tomi - you all but said the iPhone 6+ would bomb. It was a me-too follower phone that wouldn't be attractive." Then you write a long comment about how pessimistic I was about the iPhone 6 in my analysis of that launch.

So I went back to read the blog, just to be sure I am not now remembering things wrong. I wrote "Yes the iPhone will set a new sales record of course for Christmas but its market share will be the worst the iPhone has seen for many years and the total annual market share for 2014 will be somewhere down near 14%." I make very clear "Apple is not doomed. Apple makes the biggest profits in the industry." And I finished my analysis with this "Yes the iPhoen 6 models will sell very well to existing loyal iPhone owners. But they are spectacularly weak compared to all rivals out there now, in terms of winning new customers to Apple. Apple's bleeding market share will continue and I think this year Apple ends with something around 14% market share (full year) and next year powered mostly by this model range, the iPhone market share continues to fall to something near 12%"

I make it very clear, Apple will have a RECORD quarter (as it did). It will continue to be the most profitable tech company and iPhones will set new sales records (as it all happened). BUT I warned - that this is not good enough to win back the market share that Apple has been bleeding for years now. THAT IS TRUE. The iPhone market share is down again for full year 2014 vs full year 2013. Down. I said so in my 'no bullshit' analysis of will the iPhone 6 line set the world on fire. It didn't. It won't. This is the glory moment when the rivals will regroup and by September iPhone will again have quarterly market share near 10%. This is the NORMAL pattern, you know that LeeBase. The launch quarter is a peak. You can't examine Apple quarter-on-quarter, you have to examine Apple year-on-year. And this was not good enough.

Yes, it set new records, yes it produced great profits but the market share was DOWN. In fact, even the Q4 market share was nowhere near the best that iPhone has done in recent years - for that same quarter!

You may read that blog as me being pessimistic about Apple. Fine, an optimist will call a realist a pessimist. But I was CORRECT. Apple DID increase unit sales, revenues and profits BUT WAS NOT ABLE to match its best quarterly iPhone sales records for market share and once again, annual iPhone market share is DOWN. These were highly desired iPhones that gave what Apple users wanted and they were celebrated but they came too late to bring back GROWTH in market share. Apple waited too long. That was EXACTLY what I said in my blog. There will be record-breaking Christmas sales but the market is so much bigger, Apple won't be able to gain market share with these.

You want to say I always hate Apple. I don't hate Apple. I call it as I see it, and I am - BY FAR - the most accurate forecaster of Apple year out, year in. Or dare you LeeBase point me to any other forecaster of smartphones who has a better record than me? Anyone? Go ahead and try haha... Find one. And I'm not an Apple specialist.

What you read is Apple hate and pessimism when I wrote realism. iPhone grew yes but didn't stop market share decline. Even the peak market share of Q4 did not match (far less exceed) the previous peaks Apple has achieved in Q4 market share. Now it will be all down hill from here the next 9 months as you know, until we get September of 2015 and the new iPhones for the year. And I am a bit worried, that actually 2015 iPhone quarterly bump might be quite mild compared to this one, now that the phablet screens are done haha... I said iPhone annual market share will be down, it is. I am now again saying, these iPhone 6 models will not sustain a market share growth in 2015. So the iPhone market share will be DOWN AGAIN in 2015 compared to 2014. And remember, LeeBase, I am not a 'hater' who always predicted iPhone declines. I predicted correctly the rising market shares from 2007 to 2010 and was the first in the world to call the peak.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

To all about Samsung

I will of course report a Q4 number if Samsung releases one. If not, we have to wait until the 3 analyst houses give their best guesses, and take the average as the best number we can find. As usual.

But Samsung has just released its Q4 results. It reports that smartphone unit sales are down. So below 78 million, and I would say could be in the 70M - 77M range. Looks like Sammy may have slipped in Q4 to below iPhone level even. For the full year they are safely above 300 million in total shipments of smartphones but Q4, that will be close.

They also said that they expect unit sales to be further down into Q1 due to seasonal patterns (post Christmas). We can expect similar downturn at Apple. Both Samsung and Apple have strong presence in China which mitigates the extent of the downturn after Christmas (Chinese New Year is their gift-giving season). Apple has passed Samsung in the Chinese market (at least temporarily) powered by phablet sized 6 series so maybe Apple gets bigger boost from that, but also Apple biggest market was not China, it is the USA, where the after-Christmas decline is considerable. Samsung is far smaller in the US market and that could all then turn out a wash.

In practise it means they are roughly running neck-to-neck now Q4 and Q1. Wow. And then we know the next iPhone spike will come for Christmas 2015. So the race for the title in 2015 depends on the summer. If Samsung can get hot smartphones out and do strong sales in Q2 and Q3, as a 'buffer' against the Christmas surge of iPhone, they should be ok for holding the title for 2015. But if Samsung reports still a following quarter of decline in Q2 - then its really tight for the title.

So yeah, I won't do a quarterly results analysis blog entry if there are no numbers to report on Samsung. But for you guye, who will be screaming about this news item today, yes, this is big news and now Samsung is skating to very thin ice. They have one quarter to fix it or we could see them going over 'the cliff' if all the wheels come off and their unit sales keep falling. The organization is far too big to sustain a shrinking unit sales business in smartphones. To be clear, its not that Samsung's market share has fallen, its that Samsung's UNIT shipments in Q4 has fallen from Q3. That is bad news. And they expect further unit shipment decline into Q1 (a quarter where this is normal). So Samsung's recovery strategy is not at least yet expected even to get steam into Q1. Q2 will be a period to watch for Gangnam.

(PS while we don't discuss the levels of profits, yes the Samsung smartphone business was profitable and yes, their average prices also are up driven by what, of course their top end phablet sales)

I know this topic was Apple but if you want to talk Samsung now, go ahead, I won't be posting a separate Sammy entry (unless they surprise us by giving their Q4 number)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[markj]

@Tomi:
"In its first year the iPhone sold 10 million units. The iPod did a far better first year (I forget what their final number was)."
The iPod sold 376 thousand, that's right, thousand units in its first 12 months (beginning Oct 2001) and 939 thousand in its 2nd year. Let's not try to rewrite history.

After reading your response, it's unclear to me if your projection for Apple Watch sales is 2, 5, 7, or 10 million in its first year? It's very clear that you're forecasting no Apple Watch 3.

I think you'll be very wrong on both forecasts. Globally, there are about 70m iPhone 6/6+ owners, and ~150m iPhone 5s owners. If just 10% of these owners buy an Apple Watch in the first year, that's 22 million. Even 5% gets to about 11m. KGI, which at 73m was the most accurate predictor of iPhone 4Q sales, expects 2.8m Apple Watch sales in its first month and that's because it will be constrained by availability of some component parts.

[TDC123]

@Tomi " Haha, good comments and interesting point. Now Apple has kind of fixed its last glaring omission at the top end. Yeah, where can they go from here? Next iPhones are updates to these model ranges, the obvious gaps are (mostly) filled. I am having a hard time imagining any other than iCamera (or QWERTY) version that could give a big new bump to iPhone in 2015 for Christmas. Yes, obviously we'll get new models but the hunger is mostly haha, fulfilled. It will be interesting to see how that peak is next Q4 and the numbers we'll look at this time one year from now.... good point I hadn't thought of that. Maybe my iCamera has even more merit than I thought haha..."

Interesting thinking about where apple can go from here.

I we talk about hardware features which you and many other consider important, well I think its very simple as you pointed out, look at where Nokia went, Apple has so much more they can improve on in the hardware side,

Apple can always add a hardware feature either before the Android OEMS add it or after the Androids OEM it won't make a huge difference as we have seen in the current quarter. Apple made big screen phones after Android OEMs made and they performed very well and even took share from Android.

You can also ask the question where do Android OEMS go from here ? Is there any hardware feature (or even software feature) that Android OEMS could pull off that even Apple won't be able to replicate ? Where can they differentiate ? As far as I can see Android OEMs are busy competing amongst themselves.

[John F.]

@ Tomi ... and the haters

First, interestingly some of the apple haters apparently went underground .... this discussion is far far better without the rage and hate, haters please take a holiday until Q3.

Tomi, it is important to mention effective tax rates, Apple has gone to great extents to pay around 26,5% while Samsung pays 4,5% . It has huge financial implications, I know you don't like it and I won't discuss numbers but it is a key ingredient in understanding a bit better, so maybe you should consider letting some comments go....

We know because they had to come clean with that information that around 40% of the Galaxy high end didn't sell .... it sits in warehouses somewhere, this is a bad trend.

We also know that Samsung competes in the 2 worst wars, specs and price. If the rumors with the next processor are true, there is trouble looming in an scale hard to predict as they do not report in a transparent way, we have no clue of the real problems with the mobile division and the viavility of its business as it stands.

An interesting year ahead.

[Lullz]

@Tomi

Those who criticize your forecasts are not actually talking about the year 2014 but about the last quarter of 2014. This is because you didn't think iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ were such great products able to gain that huge sales.

One way to illustrate this is looking at your forecast for full year 2015. You have been forecasting 12% market share for Apple and it remains to be seen if you will change this forecast because of the strong sales Apple had in the last quarter.

It's of course understandable that forecasts change when there is new information available. This time however a possible change to your forecast is probably happening because of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ having considerably stronger sales compared to your initial analysis of the devices.

Have you already updated your analysis about the market share Apple will have for full year 2015? If you have, I have missed it.

My personal estimate is that Apple will have more than 10% of all phones sold and more than 15% of smartphones sold. Apple will also grow faster than the industry.

[markj]

Huawei is planning to move to the high-end. See http://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-shifts-sights-to-high-end-smartphones/

"On Tuesday, the leader of Huawei's consumer business group, Richard Yu, told reporters at a briefing in Shenzhen: "If we sold more low-end phones, we could even double our shipments...but in the low-end market there is no margin."

While rivals including Xiaomi are currently reaping the rewards of producing budget mobile devices, Yu considers it is a short-lived victory. According to Yu, most low-end smartphone makers will vanish in three to five years as their business models are not sustainable.

"There are too many brands in this industry," he said."

2013's low-end manufacturers (Huawei, Samsung, etc) are being squeezed out by even lower low-end Chinese and Indian vendors. So how does this play out in the next 5 years? Can a few in the middle survive by selling to non-emerging markets (where the lower low-end vendors have not yet begun selling)?

[markj]

Similar phone market share trajectories of Nokia and Samsung...

pic.twitter.com/kw9DmNQUC2

[Lullz]

@markj

It looks like Samsung is going the same way Nokia was going at the time. At least as far as the market share is concerned.

It's a good question how Nokia would have managed to survive from that without abandoning the old strategy but Samsung's fate will give us some idea about that. Then again Samsung seems to have better odds compared to what Nokia used to have back in the days.

[abdul muis]

@Tomi

Sorry I put this here. I think you might be interested in this stat

25% of Android devices are dual-SIM, but not everywhere
http://opensignal.com/reports/2015/01/android-devices-dual-sim/
Country Proportion of users with multi SIM (data: OpenSignal)
Nigeria 65.70%
Bangladesh 62.60%
Tanzania 58.20%
Guatemala 57.10%
El Salvador 56.60%
Honduras 55.90%
Ukraine 53.10%
Armenia 48.70%
Philippines 47.60%
India 47.50%
Pakistan 46.00%
Jamaica 45.20%
Laos 44.60%
Ivory Coast 44.10%
Thaliand 43.80%
Myanmar 43.60%
Indonesia 43.60%
Suriname 43.30%
Belarus 42.80%
Senegal 42.20%
Moldova 41.20%
Russian Federation 41.00%
Tunisia 39.30%
China 39.10%
Georgia 38.20%
Vietnam 37.90%
Nepal 37.00%
Kenya 36.80%
Colombia 35.00%
Nicaragua 34.20%
Malaysia 34.00%
Bulgaria 33.60%
Mexico 33.30%
Romania 33.00%
Ghana 32.60%
Guadeloupe + Martinique (France) 32.40%
Portugal 32.40%
Kyrgyzstan 31.50%
Kazakhstan 30.90%
Azerbaijan 30.20%
Ethiopia 30.10%

(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ihh1CqLBoVYu8tVXO7h1sPudhJBkExCAAlJQZtAMFyY/edit?pli=1#gid=1744995906)

[AndThisWillBeToo]

In related news: BB OS, FF OS, Jolla... all OS's behind three first ones COMBINED account for 0.7% of smartphone shipments.
It's a duopoly, folks. There is no contender. If Apple goes below 10%, it means Android goes over 90%. As simple as that. Microsoft is nothing but noise in the signal.

http://blogs.strategyanalytics.com/WSS/post/2015/01/29/Android-Shipped-1-Billion-Smartphones-Worldwide-in-2014.aspx

[Tomi T Ahonen]

To all

I just posted LG results analysis (And Lumia) and in it did the same Samsung discussion I did here in the comments.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

About the September iPhone 6 analysis blog

NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO NO. It was NOT in any way a 'forecast' blog about Apple performance IN THE CHRISTMAS QUARTER. It was an analysis of the iPhone 6 series IN THE NEXT YEAR.

HAVE YOU GUYS NOT LEARNED ANYTHING on this blog in the 7 years the iPhone has existed. WE CANNOT EXAMINE the iPhone on ONE QUARTER. If we did that, you should be equally DESPERATE every summer. Come on guys. That blog is about will the iPhone 6 series WIN in the next YEAR. Not this one quarter.

Yes of course I ALSO discussed the immediate sales. And I correctly CORRECTLY predicted record sales. Don't put words in my mouth that I said it will fail. I predicted CLEARLY that there is a RECORD in iPhone sales for Christmas AND profits and a huge spike in sales. BUT that the MARKET SHARE will not reach or pass the recent peaks - as it did NOT. EXACTLY the correct prediction. Unit growth yes, market share growth, no. Total annual market share with this Christmas spike will STILL BE DOWN.

THAT IS NOT WHAT THE BLOG WAS ABOUT. That would be silly, considering what I've written the past years. It is about the next 12 MONTHS, from October 2014 to September 2015. This iPhone 6 pairing IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH over the next YEAR. It is only strong enough to manage a modest spike, not even match Apple's best Christmas spikes. EXACTLY that is what happened. Now, go back and read the blog. The specs are not good enough. Did the iPhone 6 Plus devastate the direct rival, Samsungs Galaxy Note 3? No. THAT is the one strong part of Samsung's crumbling Galaxy empire. So Apple took its best shot at Samsung's real lead - and missed. THIS was their ONLY shot at that Note 3, in the next 12 months. The next chance Apple gets is September 2015. If they bother to upgrade the iPhone 6 Plus at that time (they might not).

Where did Apple gain on Samsung? Samsung lost most of its market at the bottom end - where Apple isn't playing. Sammy didn't lose to Apple, it lost to Huawei. Where then did Apple gain vs Samsung. Against the old Galaxy S5 flagship, which was weak to begin with and now the iPhone 6 clearly wins against it - momentarily. Until we get the next Galaxy S6 flagship which gives Sammy its chance to strike back at Apple. Is the iPhone 6 strong enough to take the rivals? NO ITS NOT. It will LOSE MARKET SHARE THIS YEAR (2015).

That is the blog. It is NOT a forecast blog about Q4 no matter how much you guys desperately want to read it as such. I don't even mention that 57 million number or whatever some calculated out of it. I told you my view about the products. The are what I predicted Apple had to do. They are good enough - to generate a one-time spike of iPhone sales to new records in units, revenues and profits - but not even strong enough to give Apple a flat market share 2013 to 2014. These products were not good enough even to hit Apple's past peaks of Christmas market share.

YOU GUYS ARE iSHEEP if you fall for that SILLY TRAP about one quarter of iPhone peak. YOU GUYS, you are better than this! you are not that dumb that you fall for one quarter of not even awesome performance - in MARKET SHARE. The whole SMARTPHONE INDUSTRY grew massively from 2013 to 2014 and Apple could not even MATCH THE GROWTH RATE of the industry. But others did, Huawei, Xiaomi, TCL, and others grew FASTER than the industry.

So I did NOT forecast about Q4 performance. I looked at the iPhone 6 models FOR THE NEXT YEAR. I promised a big spike for Christmas but that the overall market share would not grow on an annual basis. And I did not force you to read between the lines. I wrote in simple English language what I meant, using such phrases as 'in the next 12 months'. NEXT YEAR not next QUARTER. Now what is coming in the next YEAR?

Apple has ALREADY told us they expect iPhone unit sales to decline into Q1 (January-March) quarter. That was before we see what the rivals are up to. Xiaomi has rushed out their iPhone killers for Chinese New Year. Samsung is working on its Galaxy S6 flagship. There will be an even more powerful Note 4 in this year. But the others? Sony is focusing on the top end to boost its profitability. So more compeitition from Xperia. Huawei, the world's fourth largest smartphone maker just said they won't bother with the growth at the bottom they are aiming at iPhone. Lenovo the world's third largest smartphone maker just bought Motorola why? To have a premium phone brand to aim at the iPhone. Motorola brand has just released 3 new smartphones for the China market and Motorola outsells the iPhone in India already (which is the next country to pass the USA for total smartphone sales soon). What about TCL another Top 10 brand? They just bought Palm, again why? Because TCL doesn't play well against the iPhone but Palm is a classic premium smartphone brand.

Will 2015 get easier for the iPhone 6 or worse? WE KNOW IT WILL BE WORSE. Every quarter now, Q1, Q2 and Q3 of 2015, the market share of the iPhone will fall. And the rivals are going to be FAR stronger, and the iPhone 6 class will be increasingly seen as quaint but obsolescent - most of all on its CAMERA.

So, if any of you want to post a prediction with your name, that you expect iPhone to INCREASE market share in 2015, be my guest. I am solid in my prediction that YET AGAIN the market share will be DOWN in 2015. That blog was not about Q4. READ IT. That blog is about the next YEAR for the iPhone. The 6 class is not good enough to gain market share for the iPhone in the 12 months. That is what I wrote EXACTLY as I've done in all previous iPhone model launches, not an analysis of what will be the 'forecast' for the next QUARTER? Come on guys. Its my analysis of the NEXT YEAR.

I am so disappointed in you. Have you really not learned anything in 7 years? We've seen this movie now 6 times. Do you really want to watch Police Academy 7?

Tomi Ahonen :-)