Apple Losing Its Edge In The Tablet Market?

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How can Apple be losing its edge in the tablet market? I thought they patented the edges of all tablets? :D

While Apple is still the world's No. 1 tablet maker, Samsung is No. 2 and growing at a faster rate. Looking specifically at year-over-year growth from first quarter numbers, Apple grew by 65 percent -- not bad. But, Samsung grew by 282 percent, Asus grew by 350 percent, and Amazon grew by 157 percent. The question is: Is this part and parcel of a bigger problem? Is the rest of the market getting smarter and better -- and also less expensive?
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Hmmm...how can this be? Asus, a nice 7" 32GB tablet for around $250 (add $50 for cell service) and Apple, a bulky awkward 7" 32GB tablet for around $430 (add $130 for cell service).
 
Apple's not really "innovating" anything lately. They doing a hell of a good job at suing however, while everyone else is coming up with new stuff.
 
They are number 1, that's all that matters.

Growth just rewards those that had a really shitty start. If Microsoft Windows goes from 92% market share to 91%, you surely don't consider them on the losing end of the OS battle, lol!

In any case, competition is good though, but being first to hit mainstream means that Apple is going to have the advantage of a much larger developer base for its tablet. I mean really, there is very little you can even think where there isn't "an app for that", but for Windows RT for example its immature.
 
RangerXML said:
Hmmm...how can this be? Asus, a nice 7" 32GB tablet for around $250 (add $50 for cell service) and Apple, a bulky awkward 7" 32GB tablet for around $430 (add $130 for cell service).
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If only the iPad Mini was a 7" tablet. It's 7.9" with a lower screen resolution than the Nexus 7 (for now - presumably there will be an iPad Mini sometime fairly soon).
 
Just a lot more competition with Android at the lower end and now Microsoft entering the game which though is a small percentage is all at the upper end right now, so Apple is being squeezed a bit in the middle. I think the tablet market will pretty evenly split in the long term, Android will probably have the largest market share by mostly being on the cheapest and smallest devices. Apple should be #2 mostly because of its brand power. Windows and Windows RT will be 3rd but probably not a distant one if x86 hardware can get cheap and good enough for $200 to $300 tablets. But Windows will probably dominate the upper end in price and size, a bit of turn about compared to the desktop market between Apple and Microsoft.
 
Remember how many years Apple survived with only 5% of the PC market ... and they have a lot more than that of the tablet market

It is hard for any one company to dominate the system market these days ... Apple got a jump on tablets since they were the first to offer something with mass appeal ... Android is doing well on the lower end but is still hampered by a limited amount of tablet specific/optimized software ... Windows should pick up with the Surface Pro and equivalent tablets as they finally offer something to the Billion users tied into the existing Wintel architecture and software

I think if you look a few years down the road on tablets you will get Android firmly established at the low end (5 to 7 inch form factors) ... a split in the mid (8 to 10 inch form factors) ... and MS firmly established at the high end (12 to 20 inch form factors) ... the low end will get sales but little hardware profit ... the mid will be good profits on hardware ... the high end will be max profits ... that is my educated guess as a tablet user :cool:
 
kbrickley said:
I think if you look a few years down the road on tablets you will get Android firmly established at the low end (5 to 7 inch form factors) ... a split in the mid (8 to 10 inch form factors) ... and MS firmly established at the high end (12 to 20 inch form factors) ... the low end will get sales but little hardware profit ... the mid will be good profits on hardware ... the high end will be max profits ... that is my educated guess as a tablet user :cool:
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Exactly what I was saying.
 
JL6speed said:
Apple's not really "innovating" anything lately. They doing a hell of a good job at suing however, while everyone else is coming up with new stuff.
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maybe the long-term plan is to morph into a law firm
 
RangerXML said:
Hmmm...how can this be? Asus, a nice 7" 32GB tablet for around $250 (add $50 for cell service) and Apple, a bulky awkward 7" 32GB tablet for around $430 (add $130 for cell service).
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What helps Apple's case is not only premium brand recognition, but a easier to use OS and control of something lots of companies want, the identity of the entire product market. People equate tablets to iPads in a similar way to their calling gelatin desserts as Jello. Apple has broad market recognition among all of their competition at the moment. They may not always be in that situation and they do seem to be losing a little momentum for the moment, but then again, will tablets as a computing model go the way of the netbook or UMPC in a few years? Like all large companies, there's money to be squeezed from the market while there is product interest so Apple and Samsung are going to be milking wallets for as much as they can and their various pricing models reflect what they think the market will endure to obtain perceived benefits of the product.
 
Ducman69 said:
They are number 1, that's all that matters.

Growth just rewards those that had a really shitty start. If Microsoft Windows goes from 92% market share to 91%, you surely don't consider them on the losing end of the OS battle, lol!

In any case, competition is good though, but being first to hit mainstream means that Apple is going to have the advantage of a much larger developer base for its tablet. I mean really, there is very little you can even think where there isn't "an app for that", but for Windows RT for example its immature.
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Except they're not. Android's market share had already passed iOS' in the phone space, and they just did the same int tablets.
 
blackscreen said:
Except they're not. Android's market share had already passed iOS' in the phone space, and they just did the same int tablets.
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Market share is more of a stockholder interest than anything else, as long as you have enough market share to be attractive to developers

Apple has around 15% of the total phone market share but they make over 50% of the profit ... they also have millions of "paying" customers for apps and are approaching 50 billion downloads on the app store ... although their shareholders don't like those numbers for some reason, I think there are hundreds of other Fortune 500 firms that would LOVE to have those numbers :cool:
 
I keep getting the feeling that [H] is trying to discourage me from using Apple products. Seems all the Apple news that are posted here is negative.

My iPhone and iPad work great for my needs. Anything else I move to my ultrabook or my desktop PC. I don't get the hate.

Is it because of how much Apple products cost? So what? I make good money and with that comes the ability to buy what I want regardless of cost. I don't like Android so I'm not going to use it. That doesn't mean I bash it to all my friends.
 
JL6speed said:
Apple's not really "innovating" anything lately. They doing a hell of a good job at suing however, while everyone else is coming up with new stuff.
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Their UI is 6+ years old. Unchanged.

People want something fresh and are willing to pay for it. The lower price is just a bonus.
 
I do want more innovation, but I do like it when an app dev makes iphone and ipad apps so when I buy for one, I get it for the other.

I do think of devs as asshats for having distinct ipad and iphone versions though and just relabel the app as, "HD".

Someday I'll check out the google play store and see what it has to offer.
 
snowcrash said:
I keep getting the feeling that [H] is trying to discourage me from using Apple products. Seems all the Apple news that are posted here is negative.

My iPhone and iPad work great for my needs. Anything else I move to my ultrabook or my desktop PC. I don't get the hate.

Is it because of how much Apple products cost? So what? I make good money and with that comes the ability to buy what I want regardless of cost. I don't like Android so I'm not going to use it. That doesn't mean I bash it to all my friends.
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I always assumed the hate here was because they stifle tech innovation with frivolous lawsuits.
 
heatlesssun said:
That's always a lot to with Apple hate. Except in the case of tablets they aren't really expensive anymore, iPads are very much middle of the road in pricing.
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That is true. iPads are no longer the most expensive tablets anymore.

Thinking some more, I think it has to more to do with our culture. We love underdogs. We cheer for them to take on the Goliath. However, when the underdogs becomes successful, they are considered sellouts. Then we do everything we can to tear them back down. Rinse and repeat. I think that's what's happening with Apple currently.
 
blackscreen said:
Except they're not. Android's market share had already passed iOS' in the phone space, and they just did the same int tablets.
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I believe that Apple sells more tablets than any other single tablet manufacturer: in which case, they are the "#1 tablet maker". Android and Android-derivative tablets surpassed iOS tablets in market share according to estimates, but that's not the same thing. "Android" is not a "tablet maker".
 
snowcrash said:
Thinking some more, I think it has to more to do with our culture. We love underdogs. We cheer for them to take on the Goliath. However, when the underdogs becomes successful, they are considered sellouts. Then we do everything we can to tear them back down. Rinse and repeat. I think that's what's happening with Apple currently.
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I don't disagree with this. Look at all the sudden Samsung hate now.
 
Wait, this is silly. Of course the percentage growth will be higher for products which weren't selling very well versus one which was selling very well and was the dominant product in the marketplace.
The fact that Apple STILL had 65% growth is honestly phenominal. I'd have thought the tablet market was more saturated than this indicates.
 
snowcrash said:
That is true. iPads are no longer the most expensive tablets anymore.

Thinking some more, I think it has to more to do with our culture. We love underdogs. We cheer for them to take on the Goliath. However, when the underdogs becomes successful, they are considered sellouts. Then we do everything we can to tear them back down. Rinse and repeat. I think that's what's happening with Apple currently.
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I always thought the quote from Lady Morella on Babylon 5 summed up human attitudes quite well,

"Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in midlife, dismissed in old age and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst we do all that we can to destroy it." :cool:
 
It would be more informative if more companies reported sales rather than shipments.

Shipping more products doesn't mean much when they are just sitting on shelves. It says a lot when most Android tablets go on sale at Best Buy or Target because they aren't moving.

A more relevant statistic is online usage. 80% of tablet traffic comes from the iPad. About 7% comes from the Kindle Fire (the most successful "Android" tablet by far), 4% from the Samsung Galaxy tablets, 2% from the Galaxy Nexus, and about a half point from the rest.

Another difference is tablet optimized applications and developer apps. That comes off as even more skewed given that tablet application development on Android is almost non-existent. Its also a distant priority to Android smartphone app development, which itself makes developers only a quarter in profit (both from sales and advertising) of what they make on iOS.

It is a statistic that probably gives a more distorted view of the difference in tablet adoption, so maybe it isn't worth looking at. People with Android tablets, even if they don't use apps, are still probably using the web.

Either way, reporting shipped units doesn't paint a complete picture. The iPad mini had a waiting period of weeks during the last quarter, they were selling every one they could make, so there is probably a close correlation between sold and shipped units for Apple. The same cannot be said for Android tablets sitting in piles at retailers, not unless people are buying them but just not using them.
 
MostComfortable said:
It would be more informative if more companies reported sales rather than shipments.
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People say this all of the time but if the units shipped keep going up and up, does anyone think all of that inventory is just sitting in warehouses unsold while more product is being shipped? Supply chains are pretty efficient these days and good at just-in-time delivery as no one wants to sit a stock pile of electronic gadgets that have a self life shorter than raw meat.
 
kbrickley said:
I always thought the quote from Lady Morella on Babylon 5 summed up human attitudes quite well,

"Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in midlife, dismissed in old age and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst we do all that we can to destroy it." :cool:
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My friends have raved about BSG Reboot, Stargate, and Babylon 5. I managed to find time to slowly finish BSG. Unfortunately Netflix no longer has Stargate and Babylon 5. If it ever becomes available again, I'll make sure to watch it.
 
I don't know man, I'm just pissed off, my apple stock went from $600 to $400, how is that possible?
 
Selling 100 items and then selling 350 items next year is a 350% growth rate, while selling 100,000 items and then 100,010 items next year is less than 1%. :p

Though I am glad to see other brands selling more and gaining more market share. I dislike iOS.
 
heatlesssun said:
People say this all of the time but if the units shipped keep going up and up, does anyone think all of that inventory is just sitting in warehouses unsold while more product is being shipped?
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Products either go on clearance sale, which you see often, or they get returned to the manufacturer.

The other explanation for the discrepancy in usage metrics is that people just aren't using non-iPad tablets, which I don't believe. The online usage metrics and guesstimated sales figures of the Kindle Fire seem to go together.
 
heatlesssun said:
Supply chains are pretty efficient these days and good at just-in-time delivery as no one wants to sit a stock pile of electronic gadgets that have a self life shorter than raw meat.
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Supply chains are efficient in the way that you say if people keep buying them. Only Apple and a few others manage to exhaust their total supply.

Companies still need to produce in predetermined quantities in order to meet their desired wholesale component costs. It is entirely possible to make your product in quantities to hit that target, and then have a good chunk of that returned back to you because they didn't sell.
 
MostComfortable said:
Companies still need to produce in predetermined quantities in order to meet their desired wholesale component costs. It is entirely possible to make your product in quantities to hit that target, and then have a good chunk of that returned back to you because they didn't sell.
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If you're in the phone and tablet business and constantly have a good chunk of made inventory returned back because it didn't sell you will not be in the phone and tablet business for long.
 
blackscreen said:
Except they're not. Android's market share had already passed iOS' in the phone space, and they just did the same int tablets.
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So, it takes a dozen companies or more together (android mfr's) to outsell the ONE selling iPads. Yeah, that's kicking ass...

Both are great tablets. When you are at the high end, there isn't a lot of difference in cost (yes, Apple tends to be a bit more expensive).

From a usability and simplicity standpoint, Android can't touch iOS.
 
techrat said:
Their UI is 6+ years old. Unchanged.

People want something fresh and are willing to pay for it. The lower price is just a bonus.
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Tends to happen when you get it right the first time.

Someone above wrote something like "growth is the reward for shipping a shitty product to begin with". That's really quite novel, and not entirely wrong :)
 
TechLarry said:
So, it takes a dozen companies or more together (android mfr's) to outsell the ONE selling iPads. Yeah, that's kicking ass...

Both are great tablets. When you are at the high end, there isn't a lot of difference in cost (yes, Apple tends to be a bit more expensive).

From a usability and simplicity standpoint, Android can't touch iOS.
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This is a pretty ignorant post, if you make an OS and product and you sell only 1 device then your sales are high. If there was only 1 single other tablet maker lets say samsung they would probably sell more than apple at this point. But because we have many choices the market share is split up among them. There are a lot of options that apple does not offer and neither does lets say Samsung so people are going to buy other products.

Apple didn't even make the tablet first nor were they first to market, they just had the money and the name brand to make people think they were. Archos and other smaller companies were already making tablets. Unfortunately they could never leverage interest, because consumers don't know anything exists until a huge company like apple makes it. There are actually lots of companies that consider this in their plans, the literally purposely do not release products because they are waiting for a larger company to break ground.
 
I don't know how Apple can be anything but doing good right now. Everywhere you turn, people have an apple device like an ipad, iphone or ipod and often all 3. It's rare you see someone with an alternative such as an android device. I have an Android phone and I'm pretty much the oddball in any crowd I go in. I got it for that reason. Think different. :D
 
Red Squirrel said:
I don't know how Apple can be anything but doing good right now. Everywhere you turn, people have an apple device like an ipad, iphone or ipod and often all 3. It's rare you see someone with an alternative such as an android device. I have an Android phone and I'm pretty much the oddball in any crowd I go in. I got it for that reason. Think different. :D
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It's not that they are doing bad, it's that they aren't doing as well as a few years ago.
 
hdawg06 said:
It's not that they are doing bad, it's that they aren't doing as well as a few years ago.
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I don't think it's so much that aren't doing as well as that there are simply more alternatives that simply didn't exist before.
 
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