The Whole Widget
January 31st, 2011 - 11:54 am
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Google makes Android, but Apple makes money. iPhone has 4% market share, generating 51% of all wireless industry profits. Not just in the smart phone market, mind you, but the entire industry.
There are many Android phones, but only one iPhone. Exclusivity kills (I can say that, right?).
I’m waiting for the 4G VZW iPhone. Once that releases I’ll ditch my Droid X, the wife willing.
So… you’re saying apple is good because it’s over priced? (if you get 51% of the profit with only 4% of phones….)
Maybe you’re just trying to be clever, but I’m not sure you fully understand price and profit and margins.
Price is what people are willing to pay. Profits are what you keep, after expenses.
Fat profit margins means that you are able to sell people what they want, using relatively few resources. High margins are also an inducement for better competition, because other manufacturers will want a cut of your fat action — which will, over time, tend to drive margins down. Unless, that is, you can figure out even better ways to give people what they want using even fewer resources.
In a competitive market — and the handset market is WAY competitive — fat margins by one manufacturer indicates precisely that they’re doing something right.
Humor, but making the point that profits that bit are a huge flag saying “opportunity here!”
Also poking fun at the MacFans, who are notoriously willing to pay too much for what boils image. Don’t feel bad, I do the same to those who pay three hundred for the name on a pair of jeans.
You really do make some big assumptions of ignorance, especially since better than half of the *profits* in a market with less than one-tenth of that in sales would support the “over priced” notion more than a *gross* in the same situation, particularly since one would assume iPhones are more expensive to make than, oh, the cheapest Tracfone.
*boils down to image
At 160,000,000+ iOS devices sold, I find it amusing to accredit Apple’s success to “MacFans.”
On the other hand…
If we count iPads as PC — and there’s no reason not to, as the iPad has choked off the netbook market, and netbooks are counted as PCs — then last year Apple overtook Dell as the world’s third-largest PC manufacturer.
But I’m sure that’s all due to “image,” of course.
Where on earth did I say that only MacFans are or would buy it? It was the only phone that could do what it does for quite some time, and those playing catch up still has a ways to go.
The MacFan effect only comes in when there are options that are similar or better for less, on upgrading gear that does everything they want because there’s a new one… and in being trigger happy (are we allowed to say that?) about any possible insult to iStuff.
I mentioned that MacFans are willing to pay a lot to explain the humor in the first post, since it was missed.
(Guessing you haven’t had people try to justify that Apples are best because you pay more for the same thing? I know I have, frequently, second only to them being “virus-proof” and just in front of “pretty.”)
Okay, as an employee of one of the major wireless companies, I was scratching my head thinking about how Apple was generating 51% of wireless industry profits, then I looked at the article and saw it was about wireless HANDSETS. I feel better now.