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My Forecast on Republican Race One Day Before First State Votes: Trump Wins Nomination, Clinches on June 7, Gets 53% of Delegates, Cruz second, Rubio third

So we are now one day before the first state votes in the US Presidential nomination fights. So I'll do my forecast. Bear in mind that its four months and a week to this race and a week is a long time in politics. Any one debate can tumble the race and there usually are all sorts of issues. But I do think Trump is now a very likely winner. So I wanted to try a total-race forecast, just for the fun of it. So here goes. I predict Trump wins the nomination (not that brave) but that Trump also secures the nomination outright with enough delegates that he will not face a deadlocked convention. I predict Trump takes 53% of the delegates. He clinches the race on June 7, the last day. I predict Cruz comes in second with 32% of the delegates, Rubio finishes third with 11% and Jeb Bush (yes) comes in fourth with 4% of the delegates. Trump wins 39 states and regions, Cruz gets 13, Rubio 3 and Jeb wins one region (Puerto Rico).

So lets look how this goes in my scenario. Trump wins now in Iowa which gives him unstoppable momentum through February when he also wins New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Huckabee and Santorum quit after Iowa, Fiorina and Christie quit after NH and Carson quits after South Carolina. After February Trump holds 68 delegates (51%), Cruz has 29 (22%), Rubio has 16 (12%) and Jeb has 10 (8%). Carson, Kasich, Paul, Huckabee and Christie have from 1 to 3 delegates each. Trump brings his 'huge' lead and unstoppable 'I win all the time' show to Super Tuesday on March 1.

On March 1 we find new winners. Cruz gets 3 states and Rubio wins in 2. Cruz gets a big haul winning in his home state of Texas but has to split the spoils there with Trump who comes second. But overall, out of all states up on March 1, Trump wins more, taking 9 states and regions. Trump will be at 412 delegates (50%); Cruz will have 274 (33%); Rubio 75 (9%) and Jeb 42 (5%). The race winnows down with the last of the pretenders quitting (Kasich, Paul) and only four continue onwards.

March brings more wins to the players including Jeb's only state/region Puerto Rico. From March 15 the winner-take-all states start. The fate of Florida will be well known long before the voting happens but it will still be a disappointment that Rubio AND Bush both lose their home state to Trump. As Florida is a winner-take-all state, those lost votes will be fatal to Rubio's chances. March 15 is when Marco is mathematically eliminated from the chance of winning the majority of delegates but he will continue the race, because its not certain that Trump (or long-shot Cruz) can lock the nomination and if the convention is deadlocked, Rubio's delegates can tip the balance. But Jeb finally quits after coming fourth in Florida and his voters mostly migrate to Rubio.

The last primaries of March bring the delegate race between the three left in the running so, that Trump has 824 delegates or two thirds of the 1,236 needed to clinch. He has taken 50% of all delegates awarded and has won 24 states to that point. Cruz is in second with 598 delegates (36%) and 12 states. Rubio is in third with 123 delegates (7%) and 2 states won. Jeb has suspended his campaign with 100 delegates and one region won. 

April brings more states, and the last voting day in April, 26th, is the date when Cruz's chances of getting a majority of delegates becomes mathematically eliminated. Like Rubio in March, Cruz will not stop running, because its not certain Trump can get to a majority of delegates and Cruz is far ahead of Rubio in that race and in a deadlocked nomination situation, Cruz can still conceivably win the nomination even if Trump had more votes, if Cruz and an alliance of partners can get more delegates. So at the end of April Trump has 994 delegates (51% of those awarded, and 80% needed to clinch the nomination). He has won 29 states and regions. Cruz is at 668 delegates (34%) with 13 states; Rubio has 178 delegates (9%) and 3 states.

In May the Trump train keeps steamrolling along winning now every remaining state, but some delegates get awarded to rivals in some of the states, and that slows Trump's climb to the nomination. At the end of May Trump has secured 1,201 delegates (51%) and is only 35 delegates from clinching the nomination. Cruz is at 766 delegates (33%). Rubio is at 248 delegates (11%). 

Then on June 7, the last day of votes, Trump finally clinches while winning every state that day. Trump finishes with 1,320 delegates (53%) and 39 states and regions. Cruz finishes second with 783 delegates (32%) and 13 states and regions. Rubio ends third with 261 delegates and 3 states. Jeb Bush will be counted as fourth with 100 delegates (4%) and 1 region. Technically I have Rand Paul finishing a far distant 5th, with 11 delegates (0%).

Thats how I project this race to go. If the result is that Trump wins the nomination, and takes the majority of delegates, but clinches only on the last day, June 7, I would consider my forecast perfect. Nobody is going to guess the states and the exact delegate count correctly without simply dumb luck. Still, also for the fun of it, here are the states that I award. Cruz wins Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas,and  Utah. Rubio wins Connecticut, Minnesota and North Dakota. Jeb wins Puerto Rico. All other states and regions go to Trump.

So there you have it. I am now quite confident that Donald Trump will be the nominee for President by the Republican party. I also believe he will win the nomination race by majority, so he will not have to select his Vice Presidential candidate from the rivals he has relentlessly been trashing in the preceeding months. The convention is likely to have a lot of furious conservatives hating their candidate. Regardless, Trump will pick some surprise outsider as his VP choice. And that will make no difference, in the general election in November, Trump will go down in epic loss to Hillary Clinton in a landslide drubbing of more than 10 point margin, which flips the Senate and House to the Democrats, and the only question is, will Hillary get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Trump's loss will be worse than McCain to Obama (45%) in the class of Mondale to Reagan in 1984 (41%) and can even be as disastrous as Goldwater.to Johnson in 1964 (39%). Now lets see how close or far I end up with my forecast. And I will be honest, I would love to start off by being wrong about tomorrow in Iowa haha, would love to see Trump lose there but as I said, I am predicting Trump wins.

(For those wondering about the Democratic race, there is no race. Hillary cruises to an easy victory, Bernie picks a few states but poses no real threat apart from media-generated bogus hysteria). So what do you think? Lets talk about the Republican race. Trump for President?

Debate Review: The Non-Trump Debate, the 7th in series and last before Iowa votes? I give it to Rubio just ahead of Cruz

So its the debate coach again doing his view. The debate has just ended. Some of you probably have read my rants against Trump here so you know how strongly I felt about his gambit to boycott this debate. But this is not about who was not there. This is the debate review of those who showed up. So again, we don't need to spend tons of time on it. Here goes.

Marco Rubio I think had his best debate and was very sharp, handled the questions well, took some punches and handled those, and landed some good ones. I had Marco roughly even with Cruz but Cruz had one unenforced error, the failed joke when he threatened to leave the debate. Marco was quick to promise the room that he will never leave them and will take any questions (a very veiled attack at Trump too, reminding that he's not there while not aiming at Trump). Marco was very likable and also regularly pivoting responses to attack Hillary. The way he handled religion seemed to be to be very authentic and I would guess (not being an 'Evangelical' Christian myself, only a normal Christian) it played perhaps best with the strongly religious electorate of Iowa. It was not a perfect A performance but I will grade Rubio with the best score today at A-.

Ted Cruz had once again a good night and he has rather well adjusted from his early tentativeness to enjoy the room and speak less like an evil dictator and nearly like a nice human being. Nearly. But he was again very quick-witted and the opening piece when asked to attack Trump was very well constructed and effective. The joke about insulting everybody, then stroking the Iowa voters and encouraging them to think for themselves, then taking a clear but not too hard attack on Trump. He ended it with an obvious play to invited Trump voters to switch to his side. Very good but obviously fully rehearsed response. After the opening bit Cruz would not return to attack Trump. As I said, I felt Rubio & Cruz were running neck to neck, then Cruz tried his spontaneous joke about walking out of the debate if the moderators continued to be mean to him. I think in Cruz's mind that was supposed to be his spontaneous clever attack reminding the voters that its what Trump would do. Except that Cruz sounded (and seems) like he really would do that too. So it fell flat - and left the issue to hang for Rubio to pounce and score the points. That minor gaffe cost Cruz his score just that bit to fall to a B+. He was still the second best in the room and once again in the top tier.

The other serious candidates had all also worked and prepared. Chris Christie is really working hard to sound the exact correct balance between being New Jersey rude and being just firm. That TV clip of him attacking the young lady asking about flooding, that was the rude Christie we know also lurks somewhere in his mind, but today we had the nice version. Constantly staying calm, cool but resolute and on point. Regularly attacking Hillary and always sounding like a smart practical guy. He is also quick-witted and can be spontaneously funny like the Senator-to-English dictionary joke thrown into his opinion on Cruz & Rubio videotapes. I am starting to hear a broken record in Christie (similar to how Fiorina became after two debates) its constantly the terrorism - I am reminded of Giuliani - and now the ending bit is again that same story about his wife on September Eleven, but yeah, thats maybe because I'm a political junkie and watch these candidates way too much haha. In terms of the debate, yes Christie solid good performance with no flaws, will help not hurt. I grade him with a B.

And Jeb Bush keeps bravely plugging along, improving. This was his best debate yet. He is like that train that nearly could make it to the top of the mountain. He is now already up to speaking a coherent thought 50 seconds into a 60 second response, before the patented Bush family word-confus-o-mat kicks in. Poor Jeb he is clearly smarter than he sounds and more thoughtful and wise than he is able to articulate. And obviously this is a decade into the wrong direction for this message to play in the Republican party. Jeb should consider switcing parties, that message would find him plenty of Democratic supporters. But yeah, he is honestly improving. Luckily they have scheduled about 700 more of these debates so by around May Jeb might be able to finish a 60 second reply. I give Jeb a B-

So then Rand Paul. Well would you know it, he is with his crowd and he did bother to prepare. He seemed like he had taken some mild sedative or something, he seemed slow-speaking even for Rand, but most of his answers were relatively crisp, a few were quite sharp on say immigration and privacy. He was feeling the strong audience support and to me for the first time it seemed like he was enjoying the debate itself (a bit, not too much). I would rate him tied with Jeb so getting a B-.

Well what about John Kasich. He too was improved. Now he has gotten rid of the anger, he was purely calm and sensible except (sorry, I fell asleep, what was Kasich talking about again..) he is BORING. I personally hated that answer to Iran where Kasich was suggesting the Europeans have to join in fighting Iran because of the terrorism they are experiencing in Europe and how the USA needs to build coalitions like with Reagan, except its ISIS who is threatening Europe and IRAN IS FIGHTING AGAINST ISIS... but the debate moderators didn't care to follow up on boring Kasich and the other debaters didn't either. Were they really tuning him out too not to notice. But yeah, thats me correcting facts, thats not a debate judge's job to do as judging the debate performance. He muddled through that answer, clearly foreign policy is not his strong suit. But overall, I give Kasich a C.

Ben Carson is even more out of his league as the other weak candidates start to drop out and this 'adult table' debate gang keeps improving. Again Carson did not have a career-ending flop so I can't grade him an F for failing but he deserves the D.

Incidentially Donald Trump for qualifying to this debate and receiving the invitation to debate, and not showing up. I of course grade that as a total failure and F.

I didn't bother to watch the undercard debate, they are all going home soon as Iowa and New Hampshire cast their verdicts.

A few other quick notes. The level of hostility and nastiness was down significantly. The contrasting arguments and the clash among debaters was healthy and sprightly and delightful, not too mean at all but they gave and took in fair jabs. It also reflects both the shrinking of the field and the fact that they tend to know their rivals and what attacks are coming from whom. Well prepared group of candidates (plus a clueless neurosurgeon). The Fox moderators were AGAIN the best that we've seen all season. Very good pointed relevant questions. I personally particularly liked that 'video of your best hits' part where front-runners of this stage, Cruz & Rubio, were shown video of what they'd said in the past and asked about their changed positions. I don't think either knew this was coming or was prepared for it. I think the comment from Christie was echoing what all in the room felt, on both videos, that wait, you said REPEATEDLY one thing, and now you claim the exact opposite. I only wonder what they had intended to run for Trump had he been in that room. I do like this innovation, but I am afraid the campaigns will insist the Republican party steps in to say no more videos of past speeches in future debates...

How will this play in the next three days? The big question is, will Iowans punish Trump for not showing up. If they do, then there can be a surprise or two in the offing when actual votes are counted. I cannot but feel optimistic about Rand Paul, his loud support in the room (by a small but very enthusaistic group) seems to suggest he'll pick up more votes than his polling suggests. But this debate performance itself, no that didn't exactly power him to the top (his dad Ron Paul last time got the most delegates out of Iowa even though Santorum won the most votes, and even though Romney was first declared the winner of Iowa in 2012).

I think that slide that Cruz had been seeing in Iowa, I think that ended. This was solid enough to lock his current support and if Trump sees erosion, the way Cruz handled Trump should see those going to Cruz by far more than anyone else. The undecided voters will have to go somewhere anyway. I think Cruz should thus outperform his current polling.

The bigger winner I think is Rubio. I think he sold himself very well as a considered, resolute, religious, not too judgemental, young inspirational leader and undecided voters will find him appealing and out of those bleeding from Trump who didn't go to Cruz, they will be migrating to Rubio. He could also steal a point or two of support from the little fish like Carson, Kasich and Bush. So then it comes down to turnout. If its a high turnout, then Trump should do well. If its a low turnout then Cruz should do well. In a low turnout scenario, if Iowa punishes Trump hard, then Rubio just might snatch second place dropping Trump to a disasterous third. Of he rest, I would not be surprised if Rand Paul comes in fourth. Christie was playing for New Hampshire and I think he'll see a bump there but so could also Jeb. Rubio also should increase his popularity in NH. And if Cruz happens to win Iowa, he'd ALSO see a rise in NH.........

It was one of those debates where you noticed, oh my gosh, its already over? Very smart intelligent debate by good smart people on many relevant topics (even including Flint Michigan's water problems and racial problems with policing, as well as .. climate change - this was a FOX debate?). Not having Trump there made this a far more substantive debate - but also far less 'entertaining' in the demolition-derby car-crash kind of way.

The Coward In Chief - On Trump skipping the debate, some history, some relevance; both now and into the general election

So Donald Trump announced he won't do the debate. I have to comment on this, of Trump now running for Coward-In-Chief. So Trump had been threatening to not do debates before (CNBC and CNN debates). Now the debate is on Fox News, the most friendly network to Republicans and conservatives. So Trump threatens the 'left-leaning' CNBC and 'centrist' CNN networks but won't do the Republican's 'own' network. Thats .. peculiar.

Trump complained about Fox News first debate, that their anchor Megyn Kelly had been unfairly attacking Trump. Note, Megyn Kelly QUOTED Trump words at him. This is EXACTLY the job of a journalist and TOTALLY valid for debates. What have you said in the past, what do you say about these things. Its even MORE relevant if the issue is about a given voter group, that seems to be offended and already at the time Trump had a huge gender gap. A gender gap that the Republican party had identified as a one of the several voter demographic problems in Mitt Romney's loss to Obama in 2012. Totally completely valid attack, but Trump having the thin skin that he has, then followed with weeks of attacks on Megyn Kelly including that 'she had blood coming out of her, whatever' comment (which many interpreted that Trump was talking about her menstruation cycle, and was angry because of that). Now, leading up to this debate, for weeks, Trump had been lobbying to get Megyn Kelly removed from the panel of moderators. Fox News correctly informed Trump that the candidates do not get to pick their moderators. This escallated and Trump kept attacking Kelly as weak and a light-weight as a journalist (while of course we have Trump on videotape earlier a few years ago, calling her a great debate moderator).

So Trump started again with his threats that he won't do the debate. Then he went onto Twitter to ask his followers should he skip the debate. As this was going on, Fox needled him with a joke that the Ayatollah and Putin would be mean to Trump. And then Trump decided to take his ball and go home. He isn't debating.

First, this is incredibly self-serving for the front-runner who has recently STARTED to attack a rival he had not attacked before. Trump promised he won't start the attacks, he said he will only respond if others attack him. And Ted Cruz remained nice to Trump so they didn't attack each other for months. But then when Ted Cruz passed him in some polls, suddenly Trump started to attack Cruz. When he was asked about it in the last debate, Trump even admitted, yeah, he did start the attacks but it was because Cruz was ahead of him in the polls. A stunning admission. But now, only a few days before Iowa votes, Trump suddenly pulls out. This is totally unfair, because he is the front-runner (who has attacked his rivals and who has the largest percentage of lies ever measured of any US politician, a massive 76% of his statements are untrue by Politifact. Even Dick Cheney only got 59% of his statements as lies) and Trump has literally attacked each of his rivals. They should be allowed to challenge Trump on his attacks, and he should be man enough to stand there, and take it, and respond.

This is also remarkably unfair to voters of Iowa. Its their last chance to have seen the full field in the same room, and to see contrasts and see candidates challenge each other or respond to each other. Now the front-runner is thumbing his nose to this tradition. Voters of New Hampshire will get another chance (assuming Trump comes back to his senses and rejoins the debates) but for voters of Iowa, this is really unfair. Screwing them. They have seen the candidates cris-cross their state, to talk on TV and radio and endorsed by media and political leaders. Now one candidate decides to take the Iowa voters for granted and ignore the debate. To turn down the valuable invitation to the prime time debate, where others struggle to make the KIDS table debate. Trump is making a mockery of the debate process and thus is very literally mocking the voters of Iowa.

For Trump there is on the first view, a big upside gain. He being the front-runner and having run the nastiest campaign in history (so far, and we've only barely started) Trump knew he would be the target of various attacks. Attacks that several candidates would have 'held' for their ideal moment, this very debate. The last debate before Iowa votes. (I said they should have attacked earlier, idiots!). Trump is not a natural debater but he's been getting better at it. Still he is not in the class of Cruz or Rubio or Christie (or Fiorina from the kids table). And Trump is lazy, he doesn't prepare well, a debate takes a lot of work. He'd much rather arrange a stump speech with some 'surprise guests' (like no doubt Sarah Palin again) where he can forbid journalists from asking any questions and even kick out journalists he doesn't like. But all rivals have to do DOUBLE the debate-prep. One version where Trump IS in the room, and the other, of what to do if Trump is not in the room (and then the fighting will be probably more amongst those present, ie more of Cruz vs Rubio, etc)

If this goes unpunished, it becomes instantly the favorite gambit by all who lead in the polls. To pull out at the last moment. The rival has to do useless prep, and the leader in the polls is not touched either by moderators, nor by the rival(s) in the debate. Nice. This cannot be allowed to stand. So lets look a bit at history.

REAGAN MCAIN

Its not the first time that a candidate has threatened to not debate. Ronald Reagan played this very same gambit, in the position Trump is in right now. In 1980, Reagan was the front-runner for the Republican nomination (it was his second attempt) and he was well ahead in the polls for Iowa. So he decided not to do the TV debate (against Daddy Bush, his rival). Well, Bush ridiculed Reagan for being a coward, and the voters of Iowa rewarded Daddy Bush with the victory, humiliating Reagan. Reagan of course then returned to debate and went onto beat Bush in the debate (Reagan was a far better debater than Bush so this was a stupid tactic to begin with) and Reagan won the next vote in New Hampshire, but Bush kept the race running long, and it was a bloody nasty race, which the Reagan campaign later admitted, it was a huge blunder to let Bush win that Iowa vote, so skipping the debate gave Bush a lot of life, that then prolonged the race, and forced Reagan to pick Bush as his VP to fix the rift that had formed in the party. Reagan despised Bush. So we do have the history of the voters of Iowa rejecting this gambit.

Then we have John McCain in 2008. His campaign was struggling all along against once-in-a-century supercandidate Barack Obama. McCain had planned to select former Democrat and then Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, a very 'maverick' move by a Republican, but then decided that he needed a bigger gamble, and picked Sarah Palin. And the first weeks were excellent with Sarah, giving his campaign a big boost. Then came the TV interviews (I read all the newspapers). So McCain decided to suspend his campaign and go fix the economy (haha, doing nothing in those meetings, he was only one Senator out of 100). But McCain seriously suggested skipping the scheduled debate with Obama. Obama was by far the better debater, he was going to have none of that and started to ridicule McCain about not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. McCain had to relent and did the debate.

BRING IN THE TAPE

So we have some history of this. There have been actually several cases of candidates skipping debates but those were almost always backmarker candidates who were close to quitting their campaigns already. Like Michelle Bachmann in 2008. But you know what? We have an opinion of this gambit. Called skipping debates cowardice, yes he did. Who was that? You knew it, of course its our Donald J Trump. Saying that skipping a debate was a lack of 'courage' and that she was being 'greatly disloyal' and that the voters were rejecting this. Nice. This is THE videotape to destroy Trump as the tough guy, the Brave One who takes on Putin and the Iranians and Chinese and Mexicans. He's afraid of Megyn Kelly? He says he won't debate, and then play videotape where he says those who skip debates lack courage. Splice in various Republican politicians who were NOT running against Trump, who say he should do the debate, like say Rudy Giuliani and Bill O'Reilly. For Hillary's team, this may be their favorite anti-Trump ad to make out of all the ample amounts of topics and videotape, because it is so pure 'The Daily Show' style comedy piece like Jon Stewart would run. And it hits at his core premise, that he is so tough and brave. Yet he's afraid of petite Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Plus its even more cause to talk about the original question she asked Trump, which reminds women voters how much Trump is an asshole.

BRING OUT THE VETS

So then its Trump's war veterans gambit. What a calculated political trick, so he is so 'above' the fray and takes the 'high road' of running a TV show to help veterans instead of helping Fox News get money selling ads on their debate. How noble of Trump. So, first off. He said he'd be helping the wounded veterans. So when Politico asked, the Wounded Warriors project said they had not even heard from Trump. Yet Trump had been blabbing about his love of veterans on TV for a day by then. Nice. Then the Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans of America said that they will not be used as a political prop and will not accept money that Trump raises with this stunt. Then worst.. the Vote Vets group said that Trump should not hide behind veterans being afraid to face Megyn Kelly. OUCH.

So if Trump picked ANY possible topic on which to hide from the Fox TV debate, 'veterans' is truly a bad, nasty, smelly one. It reminds all vets and all who care about them, about his comments about John McCain. Then it reminds all about his silly stunt on top of a Battleship where he said he was raising funds for vets - when his invitation was from a fraudster veterans group (of only one person) that had lost its tax-exempt status. Ouch. And now to make this issue about vets, it brings only more of the worst un-endorsements he could hope for. He should have picked some other 'patriotic' topic like go do the event at an American flag factory or something. Not veterans.

AND THE TV AD

So this is Trump. So this is gonna be more disgusting than we could have imagined. Mr 'I so love veterans' indeed. Trump wrote to the New York State Assembly in 1991 asking WOUNDED VETERANS who were LICENCED street vendors, to be removed. Yes, He is a duchebag. This was no isolated incident. Trump wrote to the NY Mayor in 2004 asking veterans to be kicked off the public street in front of his precious tower. He is despicable pond scum, which is of course a slur on pond scum but nonetheless, what else can I say. YOU, Mr Trump are slime. But again, consider the TV ad that Hillary's team is drooling to run on this. She is the strongest foreign policy candidate on either side of the table to begin with. Now a weakness in Trump, that he is ignorant of even basics of US defense like its nuclear weapons triad. And then this 'I am the most militaristic person' ( - what does that even mean? - ) and yes then that he loves the veterans. But he's worked for YEARS to try to get LICENCED street dealers who are WOUNDED VETERANS to be blocked from 'his' street... I have no words for how low this is. But if we get to enjoy the parody of a campaign that is Trump and he becomes the Republican nominee, we will get these ads for sure.

Now, a smart Republican rival would run variations of those ads, and point out for example about the veterans that poor Mr Trump has given literally HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars to Democrats but only a pittance to his 'beloved' veterans.

NO UPSIDE MASSIVE DOWNSIDE

Now the tactical evaluation of this gambit. Trump had led the race for all but one week since he announced in the summer, to December. Then in December, Ted Cruz was ahead in a couple of polls, but pulled clearly ahead .. in Iowa. Now, after Trump's brilliant attack on "he's a Canadian!" - Trump the prototypical 'birther' (gained his popularity on the conspiracy-wing of the Republican party by accusing Obama of not being born in the USA, hence 'birth' ie 'birther') so Trump's core supporters will howl at gosh, Ted Cruz indeed WAS born in Calgary Canada and he has held a Canadian passport and had dual citizenship.. So in the last few weeks, Trump regained the lead in Iowa, a lead according to Real Clear Politics is 6.5 points today. RCP also tells us, that in the last 2 elections, when Iowa was 4 days out, the leader in polling of the race (in both cases Romney) ended up within exactly 3 points in the election of what the polls said (one up 3 points once down 3 points). In both cases, however, Romney ended up second. But the point is, Iowa does get pretty close to settled, known, this close to voting and the leader is tested for a long while and those votes are pretty well 'banked'. Trump has to win this election. He is ahead by 6.5 points (Cruz second). So no matter how much his supporters might love this alternate TV show with veterans (and 'special guests' no doubt Sarah Palin and idiot Sheriff of Arizona, Arpaio) - Trump cannot now 'gain' in Iowa. Whether he wins by 2 points or 12 points, he was already ahead. This gambit cannot give Trump 'more than a victory' in Iowa. And he was ALSO ahead in the polling in New Hampshire and South Carolina, the two states to vote next, so even there, this debate boycott cannot deliver a victory for him. There is literally no 'upside' benefit to his campaign.

The downside of this mad gamble is huge. First off, all of this rivals get a 'free pass' to attack Trump - while he cannot use hits quick wits - and memorized put-downs - to hit back! This is as dumb as the superior debater Reagan telling Bush he won't show up. Trump will be attacked ANYHOW. But now that he is not there, the attacks can be more vicious but FAR WORSE, Trump won't get the chance to immediately answer. Now is EXACTLY the time to hit Trump on anything that could play well in Iowa from Trump's marriages and unfaithfulness to his numerous bankruptcies to his bogus 'university' etc. Trump could protest loudly if those were brought up if he was on the stage, such as about the bankruptcies that they weren't 'personal' bankruptcies but 'acceptable' business practices, but now he's going to be attacked ANYWAY. But the attacks will be worse - exactly because the rivals KNOW he can't immediately respond. And then the rivals will be 'competing' on who can hit Trump the hardest, who gets the best laughs from the room. This is like waving a red flag at a bull. In this case a STARVING angry bull which has been teased for months by that Trumpomonster. A very very bad move. And as I wrote, if any of those candidates cannot now, with 2 days of time to prepare, come to the debate with DEVASTATING attacks on Trump that will be on the highlight reels of not just this debate, but of Trump's career, where the wheels came off his campaign - if his rivals cannot use this open opportunity to skewer Trump, then they don't deserve to be President. They should quit right after the debate. Hold a press conference and say, I'm sorry, I don't have what it takes.

But the downside is FAR worse than that. Where is Trump's alternate TV? What channel is running it? He arrogantly thought he' have the networks bidding to host his infomercial. No, thats not how it works. So he is in obscurity while his rivals get all the attention. Not smart. But what is his event going to 'announce'? Where is his 'news'. The networks will have their TV cameras there, but the only thing they are now going to look for is the rotten tomatoes being thrown or the whistling or the protesters. They've heard his stunt speech of pure boasting, they won't cover any of that. At least if he was on the debate, he could advance his position to a large TV audience. Now he's in obscurity. But again, it is worse for him. Every attack that 'lands' will now be on videotape - and journalists interviewing Trump will now bring up that stuff. So the next days towards Iowa and NH voting - will be governed by the attacks launched by his rivals - with videotape eagerly played by the TV news channels (with a lot of glee) then asking Trump to respond (to be 'fair'). So he has to endure the attacks ANYWAY but rather than have them over in 2 hours, he has to take them again, and again, and again, on all the networks. Except that now, the journalists have had MUCH time to prepare for Trump's evasions, so his 'smart alec' quick responses won't play as well. And this time - he won't have the AUDIENCE to join him in laughing at some put-down of a rival. This is BY FAR the worse way to deal with the attacks, if they come. The attacks will be nastier. There will be more of them. He can't immediately interrupt or respond and try to end that line of attack. He can't answer to 'kill the issue' either. But all the attacks will play on TV for days to come, and he will have to answer them all, in far less favorable conditions than on the debate stage - without a live audience to play with. And the journalists will have had plenty of time to pick WHICH attack to reference, and do their RESEARCH about that issue to have nasty follow-ups as well. This is dumb dumb dumb campaign stategy. When Reagan tried this against Daddy Bush in 1980, it wasn't 10 rivals all gunning for him (ok, 9 real rivals and Dr Carson). And there's a reason they called George HW Bush a wimp. He was on debates and attacks like.. well, Jeb Bush is his father's son. So now Trump will have to take the best that Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina can come up with. And given enough time and prep, its even possible John Kasich can create a reasonable attack. Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are great at delivering memorable attacks with funny punchlines from the kids table. This is like Reagan times one hundred haha... Again, every one of these has felt the wrath of Trump. Every one has been told by their campaign managers, they have to attack at some point. Now is the ultimate perfect time to attack because Trump cannot respond.

WHAT IF HE LOSES

So the downside. It is ENORMOUS. If Trump doesn't win Iowa, he will be seen to have thrown it away. He will have done a massive blunder that no sensible smart clever leader would do. His loss could be for any number of reasons, maybe the roads were slippery and it was raining. Maybe there was a mini-surge for one candidate for some obscure reason that just tipped the balance. Maybe the turnout is just too low, to allow Ted Cruz to steal the victory. Regardless, if without this stupid stunt Trump was cruising to win Iowa, NH and SC - no Republican candidate in modern history has won the first TWO of the three states, this would be a totally unstoppable train for the nomination if Trump wins all three - now if he loses Iowa, he will have thrown victory away. He would have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Even if he went on to win all remaining states, the race will be more difficult because of this gift to his rivals. And if Trump does lose Iowa, his precious image of 'always winning' will be tarnished. Even more so that it would be by such an obvious and blatant ERROR. And error in judgement, and error due to his ego.

In the long run, as Trump is still the front-runner to win the nomination regardless, he leads in most polls, and I am confident he will never skip another debate haha - this stunt will come back to haunt Trump in the general election. It will play far more badly in the general election when Hillary can point to her 11 hour marathon grilling by political RIVALS in the Benghazi hearings or say Obama's incredible trip to go spend a day with the Republican caucus of Congress, etc. Some are Presidential and are willing to face the music, others are children who run away if someone said something nasty about them. Oh, little baby, did nasty Megyn Kelly hurt your feelings, oh, why don't you cry a bit...

I do hope Iowa voters punish Trump and give Ted Cruz the victory. I would love some enterprising Iowa voters to have infiltrated his event and do the stuff that he hates like the whistling and the tomatoes. Maybe someone would throw a shoe haha. Now in a perfect world, the reaction to Trump drops his support to under 20% in Iowa and a surprise candidate is the late surge like Marco Rubio maybe, who pips Trump and takes second place, dropping Trump to third. That would be epic. And then, that the massive media blame game, how bad judgement it was by Trump to throw a sure thing away, might just anger him enough, that Trump would feel they all are ganging up on him, that he could decide to run as an Independent. And lose the general election with 15% of the vote and be expelled from Republican politics and be known as the sad angry old grumpy hater who lost everything. Obviously that reputation should also totally devastate what remains of the Trump brand value, so various buildings would remove his name... that would be so poetic justice for this scumbag.

So he decided he won't do the debate. Fine. But Trump has said before, that those who do that are cowards. And he now tries to wrap himself behind the screen of wounded veterans. Gosh, what a hypocrite, he was previously actively trying to ban unemployed wounded veterans from making a few bucks as LICENCED street dealers. There is a very special level in hell for this sleazebag. I only hope that Trump lives a very long life because after his epic political loss this year, he will no longer enjoy living the life he has been blessed with. May his kids all choose to change their names away from Trump. 

Samsung Q4 Number Almost Official at 82.4M (down 2% from Q3). Full year Sammy 322M (up 2%)

Samsung has given us a rare 'almost precise' official number for their smartphone quarterly sales. They said their total handset sales (including dumbphones) was 97 milllion and smartphones were 'about 85%'. So as we have nothing more accurate, we go with that which says 82.4 million smartphones for the quarter. This is down 2% from Q3 and gives Sammy a preliminary market share for the quarter of 17%. For the full year, Samsung now arrives at 322 million smartphones sold, obvously the biggest smartphone maker in the world and just marginally up compared to 2014 with growth of 2% and a preliminary global annual smartphone market share of 21%. The migration rate for Samsung currently is at 85% from dumbphones which is well ahead of the global migration rate at about 75%. Nothing really surprising here, Samsung continues to be safely the world's largest smartphone maker.

Chillax! Apple Is NOT Crashing. iPhone has best loyalty of any phone with massive sales and highest prices

Once again I have to do my Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde transformation from ‘hating Apple’ to ‘Apple fan-boy’. Come on, relax. Take a chill-pill. Apple is not in any type of trouble.

The smartphone is the most popular consumer gadget in human history, sold 1.5 Billion units last year alone. The smartphone business is not ending, its not shrinking in market size - its still growing! The worries are of ‘growth rate slowing’ not of ‘declining sales’. The smartphone industry is largest consumer gadget business the planet has ever seen, so yes, bigger than cars or TVs or PCs or cameras or gaming consoles or DVD players or radios or wristwatches. Biggest consumer tech ever - and its STILL GROWING. Only as the penetration rate and unit sales are at the very limits of human affluence, that growth is now slowing down. The GROWTH is slowing down, but smartphone unit sales will still grow EVERY YEAR at least up to year 2019. Why? Because its predecessor gadget, the mobile phone (aka ‘dumbphone’) is in the process of migrating to smartphones so there are still about 500 million of that business to shift to smartphones. The industry consensus view is that around year 2019 (some pessimists say 2020) all new phones sold will be smartphones. Currently 1.5 Billion of 2.0 Billion mobile phones are smart, the remaining one quarter are dumb. By 2019 all will be smart. Even if the total global handset market never grew one unit anymore (and trust me, that will also grow), just that TRANSITION of the handsets from dumb to smart, gives us growth of 500 million more units in annual sales - yes, one third more industry growth at least to come. Don’t panic. Relax. Chill. Chillax!

So what is the world’s bestselling smartphone? Its Samsung. They sell about one in five smartphones. What is the world’s second bestselling smartphone? Its Apple. The iPhone. But compare the two. Samsung sells most of its smartphones in the mid-price and low-price range, its ‘Galaxy’ class flagship phones only sell a fraction of Samsung’s total unit sales worldwide. And they aren’t priced as high as the iPhone. Meanwhile Apple’s iPhone only sells premium price smartphones. The average sales price for Apple is literally the highest in the industry. The most expensive smartphones. Its like the Rolls Royce of phones. Or Ferrari or Aston Martin, however you might enjoy you car brands. (Can’t say Bugatti Veyron, that would be the Vertu, phones so rare nobody sees them in the wild haha)

Of phones sold in normal phone stores, the iPhone is the most expensive on the market. And how does it sell? Within its price range, its the best-seller. Its like what Mercedes-Benz is in cars rather than say Lamborghini or Jaguar or Porsche or Maserati or Bentley. So Apple ‘missed estimates’ this past quarter. Well a big whoop-te-doo to that. Who the heck, cares. Apple has - get this - the largest market share in the premium phone category (where else would you want to have your lead if you could select a category? Would you really prefer to have the market lead in the cut-throat, razor-thin margin bottom-price cheapo smartphone market?) and it has highest prices and it has best profits (several of the phone makers at these price ranges generate a loss, like say Sony Xperia) and best of all... the iPhone has the best consumer loyalty of any phone brand! Yes. Best loyalty. Essentially so addicted that we geeks sometimes refer to Apple buyers as ‘iSheep’ but any brand in any tech would want to have the passionate loyalty of Apple, where whatever generation new iPhone it is, people will stand in line OVERNIGHT to be able to buy the first of the newest model. Nobody else has this loyalty in the smartphone business. Its not even close!

The iPhone unit sales growth has now stalled. Deal with it. The market that Apple was able to generate is enormous. With its loyalty, it is safe to sell something well above 200 million iPhones any year and could go well above 250 million in a good year. In 2014 they sold 192.7 million and now in 2015 Apple sold 231.4 million iPhones. Every single one sold at a profit, Apple actually generates the largest profits in absolute terms - and as percentage of the sales price of each of its phones (among any Top 30 largest handset makers, lets ignore the Laborghini smartphones and Vertus and Caterpillars for now).

The iPhone market share visited briefly 20%, then declined and was the past 3 years at 16%, 15% and now (preliminary estimate for 2015) 15%. That is yes more than one in seven smartphones sold worldwide. This in literally the most competitive global industry humankind has ever seen. Look how much Samsung is struggling to hold onto modest profits. Then look at Apple. Apple RAISED its prices last year and found growth of 20% more in iPhone sales. Increased prices and yet increased sales? In the most competitive industry where most rivals reported losses? How is that possible? Its because Apple has perfected that proposition to its customers. Apple knows what its users want, and Apple delivers that satisfaction better than anyone else! Did I mention that they have the best customer loyalty? Duh. So Apple won’t grow to have 30% of this market, who cares. They are large enough that nobody can ignore them. At 15% new sales market share, iPhones can sustain a whole ‘ecosystem’ just around their own customers, even as most smartphone users are on Android (and Windows Phone is essentially dead).

But Apple is BETTER than that. Do you know what is the market share of smartphone operating systems not by new sales, but by ‘installed base’? So the average replacement cycle of smartphones is about 18-20 months globally. And the past 3 years Apple’s market share was 16%, 15% and 15%. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out, iPhone has to have about 15% market share in installed base, maybe a fraction above it. And your math professor would be proud, but Tomi here at CDB blog would not. Because thats not the reality on the ground in the smartphone OS wars. The latest smartphone OS installed base that we have measured was for October 2015, and Apple held 20% of the installed base of smartphone! Not 15%. 20% !!! Why is that? Look at your kids. Look at your parents. See all the older iPhones that refuse to die. If someone has bought a sad HTC smartphone, they can’t wait to get rid of it and get some other phone. If someone was suckered into buying a lame-o Microsoft Lumia, one third of those ‘smart’phones were not even activated (so said Microsoft itself). But Apple’s iPhones? They get handed down to kids, to loved ones, parents, friends, or are sold in the second-hand market. Apple’s iPhone has the longest life-span of any smartphones in use. Thats why its share in the installed base is higher than the sales number, and currently yes, one in five smartphones used globally is an iPhone. Installed base market share is 20%.

Thats before we consider the other devices running iOS, the iPads and Apple Watches and iPod Touch devices etc. This is true of all major OS platforms, Android is more than on smartphones, its on notebooks and tablets. Windows is on PCs and tablets (did I mention, Windows Phone is totally dead). Even Tizen is on watches and TVs. But yes, iOS reaches all those other Apple gadgets too, tablets, watches, portable media players. So if you’re a developer interested in reach of smartphones - the largest platform is obviously Android but Apple’s iOS is second biggest. Its installed base is larger than its unit sales level and iOS adds a good probably 33% to 50% to its reach on the other tech Apple devices also in the wild. So the market potential is massive.

Which then brings me to affluence. The RICHEST digital customers are disproportionately .. iPhone owners. It doesn’t mean that rich people don’t have Galaxies or Xperias or even Blackberries but the median income of iPhone owners is the highest of any (major ie Top 30) smartphone brand. And again, this is by a large margin. You want to address the richest slice of the smartphone owners of the planet - target iPhone users. What about influence? What is the smartphone beloved by the artists, the media, advertising and Hollywood? Its the iPhone. (Musicisans might prefer the Marshall London smartphone but who cares about doped-out rockstars, its a tiny slice of entertainment anyway)

So there was an end to the ‘unending growth’ trajectory. Come on, only a fool thought there is no end to that growth for the iPhone. Come on, you KNEW this, didn’t you. It could not last forever. Nothing lasts forever. But gosh, the iPhone had an incredible run of growth after growth. Now, it settles into its mature years, milking the loyalty and satisfying customers and selling in the 200 to 250 million unit level annual sales for maybe the next decade. And while some phone makers may go (Motorola, Palm, Nokia) or come (Xiaomi, Huawei, Nokia) the Apple iPhone is an icon that I promise you, will be selling in significant levels still in 2025, similar to how the Mac keeps selling its PC year in and year out, decade in, decade out, as a profitable loyalty-building cash cow for Apple.

The growth in the smartphone market is at the low end of the price pyramid. That is not where Apple will find its business nor is it one where durable profitable market segments can be found (consider the consistent massive profits of Porsche in cars). Apple knows where its future lies. At the top, most valuable, most beloved, highest loyalty smartphones. This means, now that the growth period is over, the market share will settle into gradual market share decline - while unit sales remain roughly flat. So around 2020 expect iPhones to sell about 10% of all smartphones sold worldwide but still be the highest price, most valuable, most profitable smartphones with the best loyalty. This is what Apple created. Any other manufacturing company, truly any other, would love to have Apple’s core customers and their loyalty. The sky is not falling.

So take a chill-pill, relax, chillax. Apple is not in any sort of trouble whatsoever. Some idiots thought iPhone growth could continue forever. Well, they learned a bit of reality today. They had to grow up at some point. For the rest of us, this is one of the pillars of the industry and it will continue to play an oversized role. Every year, we will enjoy the games ‘what will the next iPhone have’. As I predict, iPhone 7 will read our mind, iPhone 8 will include the cloaking device, iPhone 9 will come with teleportation and finally iPhone 10 will have time-travel, so I can move forward in time, to an enlightened era in tech writing when morons finally have quit posting silly comments.

Smartphone Wars 2015: Now Apple. iPhone sold 231.4 million units for roughly 15% market share

Apple announced its Q4 (Christmas quarter) results and reports it sold 74.8 million iPhones. which is a preliminary market share of 15.4% for the quarter. The unit sales is up 56% compared to Q3 but as our readers remember, Apple cannot be analyzed on quarter-to-quarter unit sales because of the once-per-year new model launch cycle, so that is not comparable to the other companies and performance vs last quarter. Nor should one quarter of Apple be compared to the same quarter last year (which would suggest the growth rate of under one half of one percent, also totally not true). The way to compare Apple is to see growth in the past 12 month moving average. And conveniently, now at the end of the year, we have that number so its easy to do. Apple sold 231.4 million iPhones which is up 20% compared to 2014 when they sold 192.7 million iPhones. Thats the real growth rate for Apple's iPhone. Now what is Apple's market share for the year? I have been using the 1.55 Billion total smartphone shipment estimate, at which level Apple's smartphone market share would be 14.9% ie flat compared to 2014 when it was also 14.9%. With this number, however, I would warn that several signs suggest a slow-down of year-end smartphone sales globally, if the year ends up less than 1.55B then the market share(s for all brands) will be a bit better than my preliminary estimates. So in rough terms if you round it up to even percentages, iPhones is at about 15%, same as last year. Apple is certain to finish 2015 again as second largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and ahead of Huawei.

Note to my readers, I had predicted iPhone annual market share to continue to decline as it has for several years, even now with the new phablet-sized screen larger screen iPhones sold for the first full calendar year. I was clearly wrong, that decline in market share did not happen - but that was quite close, it may end up being flat (we will know when the big analyst houses report on their final numbers to crunch the math). Certainly there was no dramatic jump back up in Apple's market share as some thought would happen, but yeah, I got this one wrong. Not wrong by much, but wrong nonetheless. Also I warned early last year that this Christmas 2015 quarter was the first time we might see a 'peak quarter' of iPhone sales. Apple beat that threshold by 400,000 units, so we have not 'yet' seen peak quarterly iPhone sales, but now its almost certain this current quarter Q1 (January) quarter of 2016 will see the moment when iPhone unit sales have ended up growing. But again with the see-saw nature of Apple's seasonal sales, it means the 'peak' quarter of iPhone unit sales of all time, can happen earliest at the Christmas quarter of 2016. It means also that we may see this year 2016 as the first year where iPhone unit sales decline on an annual measure, and early Q1 and Q2 numbers will speak to that possibility as we will be monitoring on this blog in coming months.

Also to be clear, obviously Apple is hugely profitable, congrats. We do not discuss share evaluations and corporate performance more on this blog than note which companies are profitable, as the viability of their platforms are the relevant issue for our readers. This is not an Wall Street investment speculation blog. Don't bother to post comments celebrating how huge profits Apple is generating, that is not going to be discussed by my readers and such comments will be immediately deleted. Apple is not in any threat of dying or suffering (other than our often recurring themes complaining that Apple isn't delivering as well as it could, such as this decline in market share in the past years, it was totally avoidable and had Apple done its lower-cost smaller-screen 'C' series iPhones earlier, and at lower price points, Apple would be at 20% market share today and generate even more profits haha - but we will NOT discuss the profits here..). I deal with the metrics and statistics of the mobile industry so the numbers we care about is the size of the platforms such as how many people have iPhones or are buying iPhones. Last year it was about one in six smartphones and about one in eleven mobile phones of any kind including dumbphones sold, was an iPhone. Ok that was Apple, we now await the rest of the numbers and soon hope to have the Top 10 final numbers for the industry and the full year.

LG Final Number for 2015 was 59.7 Million, gives them 6th or 7th ranking in Top 10

LG final numbers are out in the smartphone wars. LG reports Q4 sales were 15.3 million units up 3% vs Q3 with the preliminary Q4 market share estimate at 3.2%. For the full year LG sold 59.7 million smartphones, up only 1% vs 2014, and a preliminary full year market share estimate at 3.9%. I expect LG to finish ranked either 6th or 7th in the Top 10, racing now with ZTE. I expect Lenovo (with the Motorola brand) to easily outsell 60 million units for the year and be in the Top 5 (with Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple and Samsung). And the smaller Top 10 players are unlikely to get to 59 million..  Ok, more as the numbers come in.

Smartphone Wars: Oppo of China sold 50M smartphones, secures Top 10 (low end) ranking

So more numbers coming out in Smartphone Wars. Oppo of China said they sold 50 million units in 2015. Thats roughly 3.3% market share (up from 27M and 2.2% in 2014). They will be in the Top 10, fighting for the bottom-end ranks in the 6th to 10th positions. For Q4 we do not have the official number but I estimate them at 16.0M units for about 3.4% market share. Ok more numbers as we get them (Apple announces later on Tuesday, thats the real 'story' of this period and of last year).

Can We Now Finally Agree that Smart Watches Were a Dumb Idea? - This is Apple's Revenge on the Nerds

Quick note to discuss the silly brief fad that was around smart watches. I said before they came that there was no real economy in it, and I said when the iToy sorry iWatch sorry Apple Watch was introduced, that it won't set the world on fire, and that it will be a rare iFlop like the Newton and Lisa, not anything like total reinvention of tech such as the Mac was to PCs, iPod was to musicplayers and iPhone was to mobile phones (the last two, that I also predicted and discussed in my writing, including this, considered by many the best forecast about iPhone's impact, by anyone who wrote about the iPhone before it launched). And when the Apple Watch was launched for sale, I wrote one more piece warning that there was nothing there. So now, the facts are slowly emerging. So lets take stock.

Some benefits can be had from wearing a 'smart gadget' on the wrist, like health issues or sports related uses. For those, several great dedicated devices exist that are far less intrusive, less expensive, do their job far better, are waterproof - plus do the work of a watch ie telling time as good as any watch - and don't need to be recharged every day and don't have all the hassles of a smartphone miniaturized and bulky on the wrist. So yes, there IS a market for health or fitness uses. Fine. Buy a Fitbit.

But even when ALL 'smart watches' are added together, their market is TRIVIAL in size compared to other major consumer electronics in the smart gadgets space like tablets, laptops or indeed smartphones. And every person who WEARS a smartphone ALSO CARRIES a smartphone. So now the silly tiny cumbersome thing on the wrist is trying to do the work of the gadget in the pocket, yet is unable to do most of those things well (write a message?) or at all (take a selfie). The smart watch is a dumb idea. But there are specialist niche areas where specialist niche products can sell yes. I can also sell you a smartPHONE that serves a specialist niche area like say Caterpillar's unbreakable industrial smartwatches or for example Marshall's London musician-oriented smartphone. So smart wearable healthcare gadgets for the wrist? There are some millions in that space. Big whooptedoo. It is a fart in the Sahara in their relevance to this industry which sells 2 Billion mobile phones every YEAR (3 in 4 of those are smartphones). I am not saying there is zero market for the dumb smartwatch for the wrist, but its a niche market for healthnuts. Buy a Fitbit.

Now what happens NEXT? Will the smart watch owners REPLACE their expensive wrist-toys? Some who really love theirs, will. Many who bought one or received one as a gift, grow tired of it and stop wearing one, and never consider buying another !!! The repeat business of EXISTING owners is far less than 1 in 1. IT might be as bad as only half of current owners will bother to buy another. And those who might buy another, will have FAR longer replacement cycles than those for smartphones. Thus, the market is TRIVIAL and FAR better served by the dedicated devices. Buy a Fitbit!

Then the ecosystem is a mirage, so nobody bothers to develop for this which turned out to be nothing nearly as promising as the iPad and tablets (now shifting to phablets, more phablets sold in Q4 of last year than tablets) and utterly meaningless compared to smartphone market size. So what modest app development was conned into this illusion of a market has been badly burned. What about the device makers? Apple has its iSheep who will buy any iTrinket and pay tons for it. Some day they may start to think for themselves. The iToy sorry iWatch sorry Apple Watch may be that wake-up call when they see that not everything coming from Cupertino is worth buying. But the iSheep are well brainwashed so it may take more than one such abusive product pushed at gullible customers. Want to buy a Newton? How about a Lisa PC? Apple is not infallible. I warned you that the Apple Watch was one of their rare market failures, and that after the SECOND edition fails to sell even as modestly as the first edition, Apple will end that product line. The Smart Watch was a Dumb Idea. It will go the way of the netbook and the pocket LCD TV. Or of you want to think it was a fad, then think of the brief life and death of the dorky bluetooth earpiece fad (and the sad future of the Kindle as a stand-alone ebook reader gadget)..

So now, what happens on the wrist then? Some of those who proudly wore their iToy will become branded as iDorks and the very presence of that bulky thing on the wrist becomes a badge of shame. And even if that only happens occasionally to the 'loyal' smart watch wearer, they will soon become laughing stocks and it will mean, they will find ever more excuses NOT to wear the damned thing. And every time one Smart Watch owner goes a day without wearing it, increases the risk that user decides, its actually not worth wearing anymore. This is Apple's Revenge on the Nerds

Now the Official Xiaomi Number ('over 70M') and apparently only 1M Windows 10 Lumia devices for Xmas

A few numbers in the smartphone wars.

First off, that Xiaomi number. So this is now the official number (I mistakenly reported on an old news story last time). Xiaomi said their full year 2015 sales were 'more than 70 million'. Not more precise than that. Lets say its about 71 million. Their last official number was 'slightly below 35 million' for first half of 2015, so if we say thats 34 million, then their 'year-halfs' grew from 34 million to 37 million. I would hope the Chinese started to report actual unit sales to one decimal point of millions, in accuracy and every quarter. But still, this is better than nothing. 71 million would be 16% growth vs 2014 and give Xiaomi a rough market share of about 4.7%. For the Christmas quarter, Xiaomi's sales would be roughly flat 18.5 million vs the estimated Q3 (and consistent with Chinese regulator data on new smartphone sales in China being flat QoQ) and the quarterly market share be about 4%. So Xiaomi is there in that crowded mid-field in the race for final rank of 2015 unit sales and market share.

Then two other numbers. Flurry is not the best of measures for the total market but they give good trend data and in this case, are likely a pretty good source. II am talking about screen sizes out of the total population. Flurry just reported on Q4 smallish device sales (smartphones and tablets) by screen size. Phablets now account for one third of all new smartphones sold. Small screen smartphones (under 3.5 inch screen size) is down to 1% of new sales. And how are phablets vs tablets? Phablets sell about 50% more than all tablets combined. Yeah, its once again exactly as I predicted on something many argued vehemently that tablets would win. No, mobile always wins. Mobile + Anything = Mobile. It happened with stand-alone PDAs, it happened with stand-alone MP3 players, it happened with stand-alone cameras, and now it happened with stand-alone tablets.

When I do a very rough estimate of actual unit numbers based on the percentages reported by Flurry, suggests total market for new phablets sold in 2015 was 285 million units, and traditional tablets 300 million. For 2016 if those trends continue on linear pattern, phablet new sales would be 660 million units and traditional tablets roughly flat at maybe 310 million units. I don't mean these as a formal forecast, as even Flurry's own methodology gives less than precise starting points, but in rough terms those are reasonable numbers. Year 2015 was the year when in quarterly sales phablets shot past tablets, but for full year the sales were nearly even. For this year 2016 phablets will definitely sell far more. In very rough terms, phablets will sell in very very rough terms, twice the number compared to traditional tablets (say plus/minus at least 100M for either form factor). Meanwhile out of all smartphones? Right now, one third of all smartphones sold have phablet-size screens. If the trend continues in linear pattern through 2016, by December 2016, 44% of all new smartphones sold will be phablets. For the full year, again, in very very rough estimate based on Flurry measurements of recent years, we could see about 39% of new phones sold this year.

Then the happy news for some of our readers. Windows 10 is being crushed in the smartphone wars. Microsoft reported 200 million Win 10 devices activated. There is an analysis by Mary Jo Foley at ZD Net, who has split that 200M number into PC, Xbox and smartphone platforms. 180M are PCs, 18M are Xbox devices and only 1M are Lumia and other smartphones for Xmas sales. If you had any hopes Windows 10 would be the magic to revive Lumia sales, haha, yes, keep on dreaming. Windows platform for smartphones is dead, Microsoft will soon be shutting down the Lumia business, this is total failure and suggests Xmas sales for Luma will once again be horrid (and do expect more layoffs again to come). Besides, once again, who told you so, haha.. Ok, more smartphone wars stats as they come in.