“So NPD says smartphones running Google’s Android are outselling Apple’s iPhone in the United States. What does Apple think about NPD’s claim? Not much. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison tells me the company isn’t at all worried by the suggestion that Android sales in the US might have leapfrogged those of the iPhone.”
They probably wouldn’t publicly admit it, if it did worry them ….
Apple uses its hardware to leverage so many markets, do you think they are worried about marketshare? When have they ever worried about marketshare?
Ever since the return of Jobs they have been laughing all the way to the bank with their puny Mac, OS, and hardware marketshare.
* They worried about market share when they were suing companies left, right and centre for implementing WIMP (an idea Apple themselves “borrowed”)
* They worried when Psystar started selling Mac clones for less than Apple’s hardware
* and they worried about Google when they were suing HTC.
* They cared about their market shares when they incorporated iPod Touch figures into iPhone stats
* …and they cared again when they incorporated their MacBook sales into the above statistics when pronouncing they were the world leaders in mobile computing at the iPad launch.
* they also care enough about market share to lock users into their platforms and development tools.
* and as one last example, they cared about their iTunes market share when they threatened record labels who signed tracks to Amazon’s pre-release offers.
So Apple do care. They care a lot. Apple just want to project the image of a company that is above petty rivalry but in fact they’re one of the most ferociously competitive companies out there.
Fixed that for you. Someone who is genuinely competing is too busy to be doing so much attacking, threatening and litigating.
It depends, though. There are two kinds of competition on a market : the fair kind, and the modern kind
Edited 2010-05-12 15:24 UTC
It isn’t about marketshare to Apple. It’s much more about IP.
Year after year Apple makes money on its IP, NOT marketshare. The rest of the industry worries about that stuff.
Just look at the competition. The only way to get a leg up over Apple is to dilute your brand to the highest bidder. History and current times show that Apple has not changed. They are insistent on owning and maintaining the whole eco-system and that has worked well for them. Examples supporting this are Macs, iPods, iPhones, iTunes, and Mac OS X.
If Apple hadn’t made the splash they did in the telecom market then CERTAINLY Google wouldn’t have, nor would most other competitors. They just don’t have what it takes to create a segment and create HUGE amounts of demand for their product.
What competitors are forced to do is let Apple take on the initial risk and follow in its wake. And that’s a pretty big wake of 85 million leveraged devices worldwide using a very successful app store model.
Hard not to be successful just following a fraction of Apple’s example.
Like, say, Nokia with mobile phones?
Apple made a phone with nice animations + touch screen (neither of which is their invention). Some perspective.
Edited 2010-05-12 20:26 UTC
I don’t think I ever said it was their invention, but they certainly have proven they know how to put it all together. Having hardware with a laundry list of popular specs is all good and all for the geeks, but a simple package that just works for all parties seems to always be a winning combo.
Perspective? hmm I don’t understand your point–unless you’re just trying to be witty (which I’m not).
Yes, they did a good job – but it doesn’t say as much about Apple’s capability as you think.
When a technology (like touch screen) becomes available in your hardware Bill Of Materials, you’ll think of how to utilize it best, i.e. what kind of UI you will develop. And it’s not really *that* revolutionary, even if it appears such to a consumer that receives the product without seeing the whole development process,
Any big company could have done that, but Apple saw the opportunity and resourced accordingly.
Aside Google, Apple are newest kids on the block in the telecom market so I can’t see how you can justify your statement that Apple enticed other companies into the mobile phone industry.
And as for Google, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they would have joined the sector even without the iPhone leading the way. Google have demonstrated a clear an intent on “owning” the information age (whether it’s their DNS, Search engine, online e-mail, etc). Thus building a mobile phone platform is a logical extension to their portfolio. However, both yours and my arguments are purely speculative with no way of proving.
Seriously, why should they worry about that? If they wouldn’t have expected that they would be very bad business people. It was clear from the beginning that other manufacturers would get in the market with cheaper alternatives.
That doesn’t mean Apple will sell less iPhones than before, though. The market for touch based mobiles is still growing, the (percental) market share isn’t the hole picture.
And most important, Apple doesn’t even really want to compete with the cheaper alternatives. They are very successful in the higher priced section of the market, which is much more profitable for them. And that applies to most of their products, I’d even call it their hole business concept.
Side Note:
definition for “Hole”:
a fault; “he shot holes in my argument”
definition for “Whole”:
all of something including all its component elements or parts; “Europe considered as a whole”; “the whole of American literature”
Edited 2010-05-12 15:04 UTC
Thanks for noting. English is not my native language, due to this I make such stupid mistakes sometimes.
No problem. Its my native language and I screw it up all the time, usually accidentally.
It seems to me that this situation isn’t much different than the computer OS situation in the 80’s. Apple has decided to only offer their OS on their phone. Google OTOH has decided to create a phone OS and allow other companies to build the hardware in much the same way MS promoted Windows back in the day. History seems to be repeating itself, reguardless of whether iPhoneOS is better or not, Android will out grow it due to open platform nature of the product.