Sorry for the radio silence on the blog, but there hasn't been that much really 'news' in this space, compared to years past when we sometimes had to write several blog articles on the same day..
So the past month or two? The Quarterly results cycle came in. The item often of great interest is the Apple iPhone performance. 52.2 million iPhones shipped and that gives roughly a flat market share compared to the year before, so about 14%-15%. I'll come and do the full math later of the quarterly data. That race is no longer in any way interesting.
But two Top 10 smartphone brands ARE in the news. One who is facing imminent death and the other who is making a miraculous return-from-dead. So imminent death and current Top 10 brand first. ZTE. The Trump administration has put a massive squeeze on ZTE and the company is in serious trouble of imminent collapse. Then bizarrely, Trump reversed course and felt he needed to protect CHINESE employment (???) and after yet another typical Trump-mess, we now are at a Never-Neverland where Trump's own party Republicans are revolting against their President and well, ZTE may end up a casualty of this mess. We'll keep an eye on it.
In supremely delightful news, Nokia's come-back is well on schedule. The first major analyst house has now ranked Nokia smartphones back in the Top 10 (Strategy Analytics, for Q1 global numbers, see this article via Nokia Power User). They have given a count of 4.1 million Nokia smartphones sold in Q1 with 1.2% market share and a global ranking of 9th. Congrats HMD !!! Excellent work. Good luck further this year. This is the first analyst to give a Top 10 position for Nokia smartphones and that is only for the 'down' quarter that follows Christmas sales peak quarter, so lets not yet read too much into it. But I predicted Nokia will return to the Top 10 this year, and even if currently they are on the cusp, and other analyst houses don't see it quite that good yet for HMD, this is a great trend to be on, continuing growth in market share, and we should see plenty of major analyst houses report this data during the Summer and then Autumn periods.
Then onto more good news: Facebook is in serious trouble. Duh, they are the Evil Empire Mini-Me (with Microsoft being the true Evil Empire of all time, in tech). So just noted in passing, with the Cambridge Analytica mess, that Facebook is finally caught up in the disastrous business ethics their company was built upon. As I always preach in my lectures and seminars: "Don't spam, don't spy; ask permission and satisfy." Facebook is the very antithesis of good behavior and the sooner they die away, the better. I don't in any way suggest Facebook (or Microsoft) to die in the foreseeable future, but I do expect that the next US Congress (when Democrats take control again) will act decisively against Facebook's over-reach and probably split up the company similar to how AT&T the telecoms giant was broken up several decades ago.
Ok, that is my quick brief update. I'll do the math on the Top 10 smartphone market share data in the near future too, for the record. And of the comments? Somehow the comments have been misbehaving on the blog, I'll try to sort that out, but we should all have comments open, of course, as always.
”Pray tell, what companies have ever been successful for decades in any IT sector?”
Apple is the oldest personal computer manufacturer in the world. Since 1976 that is 4 decades and now they are also the biggest computer company in the world.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 27, 2018 at 10:04 AM
”Google is making lots of money. And it is Google that drives the innovation in Android.”
No it is not. How do you know this? Look what is happening to the Android in wearable space. Even Samsung do not make money there so the processor maker Qualcomm stopped developing suitable processors while Apple makes money out of Apple Watch and innovates like grazy bringing in new stuff every year. Google makes its money from ads not from Android.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 27, 2018 at 10:13 AM
@Benny:
Sorry, but you completely fail to see the bigger picture. There are three major problems on Apple Units:
1. This was the iPhone 6 upgrader year, with a new radical iPhone. All the stars align and all Apple can show for it is, perhaps, a measly 4-5M unit growth for the end of the year. That's pretty much flat.
2. This year and next year iPhone will not be anything amazing or special, but more of a incremental upgrade. Those years always lead to less growth, and perhaps even lower than usual growth.
3. The market share quicksand swamp. Just because the effects have not had a visible effect yet, doesn't mean they aren't there. They just take longer to manifest.
So, yeah, it's pretty safe to say the iPhones will stay between 200-250M units for a while but then start to drop below that, as Android innovation overtakes iPhone innovation.
Same old, just a different scale.
Posted by: Per "wertigon" Ekström | May 27, 2018 at 10:43 AM
To Per Ekström
Do we have to go through this EVERY friggin' quarter?
"As for the world, still waiting for official reports, but if we take IDCs numbers…..”
No! The world is NOT waiting for "official reports” because we had those reports over three weeks ago. Just a day after Apple announced their results IDC and Strategy Analytics published their market figures. Just because the author of this blog, Tomi Ahonen, is too busy rewriting ABBA lyrics on Twitter doesn’t mean that you can’t go and find the research yourself.
“….but if we take IDCs numbers for Q1 (344.4M) as a baseline”
Read my lips IDC’s 2018 Q1 figures were published weeks ago. 334.3 Million smartphones. Down. A lot.
"my model predicts 1534.79 M units. This would give Apple a YMS of 14.4%…”
And, as we have already established, your “model” is based on flawed figures.
"Sorry, but you completely fail to see the bigger picture….”
And I’m sorry but you cannot see the wood for the (bias) trees.
"There are three major problems on Apple Units”
Only THREE? Wow Apple is improving
"1. This was the iPhone 6 upgrader year, with a new radical iPhone. All the stars align and all Apple can show for it is, perhaps, a measly 4-5M unit growth for the end of the year. That's pretty much flat”
Www don’t yet know the end of the year figures but as mentioned earlier your projection is severely flawed. But we already have the first half year of data.
q4 2017 iPhone up. rest of the market down. Market share gain for iPhone
q1 2018 iPhone up. rest of the market down. More market share gain for iPhone
"That's pretty much flat”
The market is DOWN. Two quarters in a row. Flat iPhone sales would actually be good for (the only measure that counts on this blog) for iPhone. Increasing sales is even better.
"2. This year and next year iPhone will not be anything amazing or special, but more of a incremental upgrade…..”
And you know that how? SO… pray tell us, what amazing our special upgrades are coming to the non-iPhone side of the fence. Apart from selling ever cheaper phones.
"3. The market share quicksand swamp. Just because the effects have not had a visible effect yet, doesn't mean they aren't there.”
Translation: I really don’t have a clue but my overwhelming desire for Apple to fail in any way possible overrides most of the available facts, trends and logic. Your mileage might vary.
"So, yeah, it's pretty safe to say the iPhones will stay between 200-250M units for a while but then start to drop below that, as Android innovation overtakes iPhone innovation.”
Translation: I really don’t have a clue but my overwhelming desire for Apple to fail in any way possible overrides most of the available facts, trends and logic. Your mileage might vary.
Posted by: Murphy | May 28, 2018 at 12:29 AM
@Murphy:
Yeah, I'm lazy and waiting for Tomis numbers, so sue me. :)
For point 1, of course I go by the numbers on my data. And the numbers tell me, Apple growth 4-5M units (maximum). That is around 1.5% growth in units. Congrats. Meanwhile, my model predicts a slightly bigger growth at the end of the year as well.
For point 2, historically Apple has had this pattern for 10 years now. One revolutionary phone, then one evolutionary. Except last few years the pattern changed to two evolutionary, one revolutionary. That is why I am pretty confident the iPhone will not be anything special this year (compared to last year).
For point 3, please. Read the data. Apple is a snowball in the Arizona desert, it's not a question if it will melt - it is a question of when. So far their magic reserves have been able to keep a frost field around itself, but that field is shrinking.
Apple is not making much of a difference in India, and declining in most countries in Asia including China, where they hold a mere 8% of the market. Africa has never been a target for Apple. That leaves Europe and the Americas. The west is still going strong for Apple, of course, but that too might change.
In ten years I expect Apple to be down to 2-3% in China and India, and while the west will keep going strong, that will dent their overall units. There simply isn't anywhere left to grow.
Of course, Trump can majorly fuck over Apple if he so chooses by declaring trade war with China. One of the first items to go there is the iPhone.
Source:
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Apple-losing-market-share-in-Asia_id102587
Posted by: Per "wertigon" Ekström | May 28, 2018 at 09:24 AM
”Apple is not making much of a difference in India, and declining in most countries in Asia including China, where they hold a mere 8% of the market.”
This is blatantly false. First Apple just started conquering the India. They are building the manufacturing capability there and this will take little more time. China is doing perfectly for the Apple. Tim Cook has sayed this several times and he also sayed that the India is similar to China. He knows these things and he knows these things better than you or anyone. How do we know this? Because nobody else is doing it. They have tried over and over again without success. In the Japan iPhone has a total domination. Apple is not investing so much to Indonesia.
What comes to Donald Trampgate Trump. Well he is f*cked if he tries to mess with the Apple. He tries to screw up the Amazon, but these guys are in a different league. Tim Cook has excellent relations with the Chinese goverment. Apple is on of the biggest companies in the world and messing with that screws lots of companies because Apple is their biggest and best customer.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 28, 2018 at 10:56 AM
https://www.developer-tech.com/news/2016/aug/26/research-developers-are-prioritising-android-over-ios/
For those still doubting the switchover is happening, and that was two years ago. The situation is not any different today. In U.S. and Europe the iPhone is still competitive, in all other markets it is slowly but surely losing ground.
Everywhere, the reports are the same. iPhone is losing ground. That is why I say, the iPhone is destined to a life of slowly dying off. It will have a solid 200+ Millions a year and a solid 650M-700M happy customers for a while.
BUT. That is their limit, their roof, and that number will dwindle. How much, and how fast, that is up to Apple, mostly. It all depends on how much they can keep up with the rapid Android innovation taking place, every day. Because anything Apple does, Android can imitate in some form quickly, while Apple needs years to catch up to anything the Android camp throws at them.
And as explained earlier - introducing new models in the $300-$400 range will only hasten their downfall - because it would destroy their premium brand, and turn off a significant chunk of Apple elitists. It's why there will never be a new Mac Mini, for instance.
Posted by: Per "wertigon" Ekström | May 28, 2018 at 10:59 AM
”Apple's U.S. iPhone sales were up 16 percent year-over-year during the March quarter to 16 million, even as the domestic smartphone market as a whole dropped 11 percent from 43.7 million units to 38.7 million, according to research published on Tuesday.”
Of course Apple is a huge failure.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 28, 2018 at 11:06 AM
”It all depends on how much they can keep up with the rapid Android innovation taking place, every day. Because anything Apple does, Android can imitate in some form quickly”
This is a lie again. Android OEMs are slower than snail. THEY CAN NOT EVEN GET THE SOFTWARE UPDATES OUT ON TIME.
Android OEM has to wait Google to do things. Then they have to wait the processor manufacturers to do their things. They have to wait for the component manufacturers to get their act together and then they can start to do their thing and at that point it is already too late.
Apple goes circles around these guys. Apple is the one who leads the processor development. If Apple needs something they can do it internaly and they do not need to wait for anything and what comes to manufacturing they just fix it with money.
Android OEMs innovation is how to win the race to the bottom and yes they have won that.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 28, 2018 at 11:17 AM
”Apple's U.S. iPhone sales were up 16 percent year-over-year during the March quarter to 16 million, even as the domestic smartphone market as a whole dropped 11 percent from 43.7 million units to 38.7 million, according to research published on Tuesday.”
And BTW Apple increased their installed base alot because those upgraders handed their old iPhones down or sold them to others. Apple is winning big time. If you want to see stats for that then read what Horace Dediu has to say.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 28, 2018 at 11:29 AM
Just in case:
http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-01-at-3.11.47-PM.png
The second graf is what you should study carefully.
Posted by: BennyDover | May 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM
@Benny:
These are the facts.
China - 8% in decline (for 2017 full year)
Malaysia - 7% in decline
Phillipines - 3% in decline
Thailand - 7% in decline
India - 2% flat
Indonesia - 1% flat
No, Apple is losing Asia. They might have a hold over Japan and S. Korea and a few others, but frankly, that is a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of Asia. Apple is scrambling to get a foothold in India - but the population there is mostly used to Android already and see no reason to switch. The ones that do not have a Smartphone are the people too poor to get one - but many already have one. So Apple is facing a very uphill battle there, and will h
Posted by: Per "wertigon" Ekström | May 28, 2018 at 12:32 PM
"Apple who pushes the boundaries like the new 7 nm Apple A12 processor will crush the competion again"
WOW....
(1) 7nm *IS NOT* apple innovation. Apple manufacture their chip in Samsung foundry or TSMC foundry.
(2) Apple *DID NOT* create any CPU/GPU. Apple license a CPU/GPU design, and build an SOC (System on Chip). The Apple A12 is an CPU + GPU + kitchen sink called SOC.
(3) The reason Qualcom/MediaTek/Samsung/Huawei didn't follow Apple chip design, which is high performance on single chip, is because in modern multi-tasking OS like the Android, it's useless & not efficient. It's ruin the battery. Spreading the power usage on less powerful chip is less stress on the battery.
Posted by: Abdul Muis | May 28, 2018 at 01:29 PM
"This is blatantly false. First Apple just started conquering the India. They are building the manufacturing capability there and this will take little more time."
Building manufacturing capability = conquering?
It's more likely... Apple sees India population number as a sign that iPhone will sell very well in India.
"China is doing perfectly for the Apple. Tim Cook has sayed this several times"
Apple Names New China Head as Sales Fall
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/business/apple-china-vp-isabel-ge-mahe.html
"Apple is not investing so much to Indonesia."
Apple did invest a lot in Indonesia. Indonesia have a Trump like nationalist move from the 'new' president. Most product must be made in Indonesia. Smartphone fall under the category of 30% of the device must be made in Indonesia. Apple did not want to make a factory in Indonesia, and in return Apple create an apps development center in Indonesia to create apps for iPhone. Smart moves by Apple to make sure there were enough Indonesian apps for iPhone.
"Tim Cook has excellent relations with the Chinese goverment. Apple is on of the biggest companies in the world and messing with that screws lots of companies because Apple is their biggest and best customer."
While this might be true, if Trump screw ZTE, I don't think Apple will survive. The chinese government is not some weakling boy that easy to be screwed. The chinese govt is a small kid that beat the bully.
Posted by: Abdul Muis | May 28, 2018 at 01:39 PM
"This is a lie again. Android OEMs are slower than snail. THEY CAN NOT EVEN GET THE SOFTWARE UPDATES OUT ON TIME."
If you want fast android update... GET GOOGLE PIXEL, or any ANDROID ONE devices such NOKIA DEVICES.
"Android OEM has to wait Google to do things. Then they have to wait the processor manufacturers to do their things. They have to wait for the component manufacturers to get their act together and then they can start to do their thing and at that point it is already too late."
too late for what??
"Apple goes circles around these guys. Apple is the one who leads the processor development. If Apple needs something they can do it internaly and they do not need to wait for anything and what comes to manufacturing they just fix it with money."
What processor development??? Apple license the CPU design...
Posted by: Abdul Muis | May 28, 2018 at 01:44 PM
lol! PER - The iPhone isn't losing ground ANYWHERE. You refuse to evaluate all the metrics. Not a single one of your predictions has EVER come true and yet you remain undaunted in your religion that unit marketshare tells the WHOLE story. It doesn't.
If it did -- we'd have seen EVERY one of your predictions come true years ago. It cannot be possible, CAN NOT be possible for your predictions to have not come true AND your reasoning to be sound. Your reasoning WOULD be sound - IF - your fundamental belief that unit marketshare tells the whole story was true. If an iPhone was the same as any Android phone, then having a 4 to 1 installed base advantage would LONG AGO have relegated the iPhone to the dustbin of history.
Take a look at the Mac. More macs sell today than EVER. Highest marketshare for Macs than EVER. And Macs still are less than 10% market share. PC's are a very mature market. The mac niche is a very mature market. Some quarters Mac sales increase yoy, some quarters Mac sales are less than yoy. But the Mac sales didn't just crater. It's a nice business.
The iPhone is the Mac on steroids. It's not going to collapse even with a smaller marketshare than the entire rest of the competition combined.
Posted by: Jim Glu | May 28, 2018 at 03:58 PM
@Jim:
You say my predictions have yet to come true, and yet I've been quite on track with my model for atleast three years now. Biggest misstep is the world numbers last two quarters being weaker than they should, but apart from that... It is uncanny how close that model has been at predicting the future, actually, considering it's simplicity.
Sure, nothing I say or predict has yet to occur. Again, Apple on the smartphone stage are in the first stages of a terminal illness. It is not yet possible to say how long they will be able to keep it up, only that the illness will take over at some point in the future.
Posted by: Per "wertigon" Ekström | May 28, 2018 at 07:17 PM
App developers haven’t abandoned iOS. iOS is STILL where the cutting edge innovation is happening. Android app versions, when they exist, are OFTEN less functional and stable. If marketshare led everything, then Android apps would be first, and far more mature. But mone rules and iOS is still where most of the money is made.
Android is fragmented in numerous ways. As such, iOS is actually a bigger target market for cutting edge, innovative software.
After all these years, and with all those hundreds and hundreds of Android manufacturers - they are behind the iPhone in innovation as often as they are ahead. And the innovation money is being drained by the “remove all the profit” efforts of the Chinese.
Android is the new improved feature phone for a couple billion people. It’s getting its ass handed to it as the computer platform in your pocket.
I bought my annual cheap ($100ish) Android phone in order to get the latest (year old) Android version. It’s nice for the money. It’s nothing like my iPhone X as a computer in my pocket. Of course at 10 times the price, it’s not a fair comparison.
But that’s my point. The largest section of Android phones sold are not comparable to iPhones. The Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel etc. are great competitors. And the are losing ground.
It’s those “computer in your pocket” phones that drive ecosystem sales. Recent article stated that every iOS app download brings in 10 times as much as an app downloaded on Android. That’s just one in a litany and years long narrative of how much better iOS is for its ecosystem partners than Android.
Posted by: Jim Glue | May 28, 2018 at 11:44 PM
@Jim:
You are not paying attention, then. App developers have stopped prioritizing iOS in most Asian and African markets, and US and EU are slipping.
In Asia the iPhone is facing stiff competition not from Pixels and Galaxies, but $300-$400 lesser known brands that are perceived as good enough stand-ins. That is what the iPhone is facing.
Again, if we go by what the numbers are saying, Apple is slowly bleeding out in Asia. It's that simple.
Posted by: Per "wertigon" Ekström | May 29, 2018 at 12:20 AM
So what app developers are "prioritizing" iOS? Certainly not the big ones. They need to be present on Android or die.
Service providers that are iOS exclusive or give a sub-par experience on Android will be in for a rough ride. This can only work in scenarios where the hardware costs are not a relevant part of the equation, i.e. if you sell a professional service that costs $millions or $100000's a year to provide, you can make restrictions on hardware to be used. If that costs another few $100000 additionally it's easily evened out by reducing software development costs. But such services are not public, they address corporate customers where these amounts of money do not matter.
But that's not the smartphone business. Smartphone business mostly targets private consumers and if you do not follow the purchase decisions of those customers you are toast. That's the end of the story.
And if US companies stop thinking at the borders of their own country they may eventually be surprised that their market is shrinking. The vast majority of potential customers elsewhere is not using iOS - if there's new trends they will most likely originate from Android.
@PWE:
"Again, Apple on the smartphone stage are in the first stages of a terminal illness. It is not yet possible to say how long they will be able to keep it up, only that the illness will take over at some point in the future."
Taking that analogy a bit further, Apple reminds me of a person suffering from the early stages of cancer but refusing to go to the doctor because they "feel fine." So whatever is rotting in there will grow and once the terminal symptoms start to show it'll be too late. And if the history of economy has shown one thing is that nearly every company that eventually went down ultimately had to pay for the mistakes they made over many years. Just look at Nokia: Elop may have been the final nail in the coffin that accelerated the demise, but the real problems had grown over may years before. They just were ignored because on the surface things still looked good.
Regarding Apple in general I recently stumbled over this:
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60152
Granted, it's just a single project and a rather specialized one to begin with, but at least it's some comprehensive numbers - something I've sorely been missing anywhere else. So - macOS is at 2%??? Even for something this niche I still believe it's a strong warning sign that Macs are apparently retreating more and more into the commercial use niche. If that trend is indeed true, the inevitable consequence will be that even less software will be developed for free, causing even more private users to abandon ship which again makes it ever more viable to charge money even for basic tools. At the end of the day the only thing Macs will be used for is as development systems for iOS.
To summarize: Apple has become a company that's only going for the money. Everything else is secondary. People start to notice and once that seemingly impenetrable armor of "being innovative" finally bursts I expect them to be in for a rough ride. What has been saving their ass for far too many years now is that the press has put them on some pedestal and no effort is taken to bring them down again, screw that they haven't delivered on that reputation for far too many years now. Apple hasn't been the leader in any new product group - they always followed existing trends, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. What's the last truly innovative thing they produced? Was it the iPad, maybe?
Posted by: Tester | May 29, 2018 at 08:28 AM