Apple Makes 92% Of All Smartphone Profits

[westrock2000]

Everything except CPU per thread performance, where they lead. Fit and Finish is tied with their more competent competitors (certainly some companies are worse). And you missed value for money. A 64GB iPhone 6 Plus $849, a 64GB One Plus One is $299. Specs are extremely similar.

I do not really think that is a good example. What store can the average consumer go to buy this product? The screen is very large for a lot of people.

They produce JUST the phone. They use other companies OS, they use other companies App store. They use other companies infrastructure. The phone was based on a very similar Oppo model and was manufactured in the Oppo factory. Minimal development cost there. Minimal overhead costs. Just hardware costs in the long run.

Apple has to design the phone. Design the OS. Design the infrastructure. And then market all that.

The new OnePlus phone is expected to costs significantly more then the current price. Which coupled with the "idea" that this is really just a front for the Oppo brand, it would make sense to me that they sold the first model at a very small margin to gain market penetration.

At the time the OnePlus One came out it performed average on nearly every single metric it could measured on. It definitely didn't trounce the iPhone in any way...outside of cost.

As far as "value for money", this is entirely opinion based. Absolute cost just isn't the sole factor for many people. This preference exists in all consumer markets. And, you have to consider that I can sell an iPhone 2-3 years down the road for about 40-50% of what I paid for it (unlocked version).

Also do not forget that Apple is an American company. As much as you would like to point at Foxconn and give a look of disapproval, Apple absolutely does employee a TON of people right here in America. It's not even just the direct Apple employees. Apple purchases components from companies right here in America. And those employees make good money.

Does OnePlus do this?

Do not just look at the lowest common denominator and think "If they can do, why can't everyone else?"

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

Time to wake up
SD card slot for storage expansion, replaceable battery, water proof, 1080p screen, ability to side-load apps the vendor doesn't approve of.

All features Apple doesn't think anyone needs, and why I'll never buy an iPhone.
It's also why I won't buy some Android phones

While cool, I've never needed any of those. SD card? I have 64GB of space, which is helped by spotify since I don't have to have everything on my phone. Waterproof? Would be nice but I've never gone into the water with my phone or thrown it in the toilet. Replaceable battery? Never needed it, on my S3 I only ever used it to reboot the phone when it hard locked. If you are technically skilled you can just replace the battery on iPhones yourself. 1080p screen is OK, I haven't seen any pixels on the iPhone 6 but I wouldn't mind it so you could watch YouTube videos in 1080p instead of 720p.

As stupid as it sounds, the fingerprint reader has been far more useful than most of those features. You generously use it everyday and it's much faster than a password. Plus if you jailbreak you can use it for a bunch of other apps.

 

[weebling1]

The Allure of cutting out the middle men! Without having to sell to distributors of several levels, you give yourself the 100-200% markup occurring multiple times.

AND THE PROFITS ARE MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!!

MUAHAHAHAHA!! /end Steve Jobs evil laugh from the grave

 

[Youn]

Corporations exist to make money, deal with it.

Things aren't so simple, fortunately, but they are far from being what many consider healthy mechanisms of a balanced society.

 

[raz-0]

If this is acutally legit, then Apple is the sleaziest, highest profit, cost cutting, corner cutting, customer brain-washing company to ever exist.

No, but apple sells a phone line up in the premium tier that they manage to control costs on, and their competitors don't. Even when the competitor is the one supplying them the parts like samsung. Controlling prices there is likely aided by the fact that apple has a pretty solid stable target in mind and isn't trying to throw 15 gimmicks at the buyers to see if anything sticks (once again, look at samsung there).

Then apple has the app store. Apple buyers are willing to also buy more apps rather than pirate them or stick to the free stuff. Google has that, no idea if they put any of it under motorola's revenue reports though. Probably not.

Apple has an ad network on their platform. So does google, but once again, not all the phone makers get a cut, and motorola may not even have those numbers on their books in any way for this purpose.

Apple has itunes and multiple streaming services. Granted the latter don't make money for anyone, but I'm sure itunes makes a buck or two.

Apple has apple care. It's warranty, and it's arbitrage. It's a money maker no matter who does it if you do it right. Apple being the producer of the warrantied products has the ability to fine tune the numbers to be most profitable.

Then there are subsidies. Originally they were negotiating a much larger subsidy on devices than any of the other makers. They likely are still getting a larger subsidy.

Apple set up successful retail outlets from which they can get a cut of accessory sales. Samsung, LG, HTC, etc. mostly give that up to the cell phone carrier stores and best buy and wal-mart and such. Apple isn't the exclusive venue for acquiring this stuff, but they create an environment in which they can that also allows them to benefit their other product lines.

I know synergy is a bit buzzwordy, but for apple they use it as a tactic to ensure more of the dollars that would be spent by users of their products regardless, get spent with/through them. They do this much better than their smart phone competitors.

 

[dr.kevin]

92% of the profits because apple has the best marketing. They are able to convince a shit ton of people to buy iphones.

Post-purchase, customers do more advertising for apple by taking sexy or naked selfies in the mirror, prominently holding up iphones.

EVERYONE is advertising for apple.
See what I mean?

 

[kbrickley]

Things aren't so simple, fortunately, but they are far from being what many consider healthy mechanisms of a balanced society.

Yeah, God forbid we have access to almost any product we can conceive of and the employment of millions of professionals ... corporations may not be perfect but they are far superior to the small localized economies that would exist without them

 

[mi7chy]

Not surprised. The clueless will spend a lot of money with the illusion that they're getting better or more. The tech savvy will pay $25 for a Moto G 2013 that's better than iPhone 6. While they both have 1GB DRAM, 4.5-4.7" 326 ppi display quality, etc. but the Moto G has better Gorilla Glass 3, background multitasking, build quality and built-in FM radio tuner.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1867128

 

[kbrickley]

i can't understand how they can fool people over and over gain each year to buy that really modest device, maaaan....:/

Because perhaps they actually deliver products that satisfy their customers ... do you really believe that Apple consumers would repeatedly return to a company that didn't satisfy their needs at some level ... especially since in the USA most people buy phones from their carriers (who sell and support all major brands now) so they have the choice to buy practically any phone they want

 

[westrock2000]

Not surprised. The clueless will spend a lot of money with the illusion that they're getting better or more. The tech savvy will pay $25 for a Moto G 2013 that's better than iPhone 6.

Do you think Motorola could stay in business selling a $25 phone? Do you think that price is realistic by any means? They are not even getting all $25. Retail and supplier take their cut as well. They were not $25 when they came. They were closer to $180.

Motorola used to build phones here in America about a year or 2 ago. They had to pull out, because they weren't making enough money.

Like I said, Apple employees directly and indirectly a lot of people in America. What other "gadget" company does that? They even have assembly lines in America.

Clueless huh?

 

[Deleted member 108676]

Not surprised. The clueless will spend a lot of money with the illusion that they're getting better or more. The tech savvy will pay $25 for a Moto G 2013 that's better than iPhone 6. While they both have 1GB DRAM, 4.5-4.7" 326 ppi display quality, etc. but the Moto G has better Gorilla Glass 3, background multitasking, build quality and built-in FM radio tuner.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1867128

If by more you mean that I personally feel iOS>Android any day of the week, then you're right.

Personal preference.

 

[Tyler-Durden]

You're slipping, mi7chy. I'm surprised it took you three pages to find another thread in which to vent your iHate.

 

[Ur_Mom]

Generally, Apple users used to be going for the underdog. Anti-Corporate, fight the man kind of stuff. Now, they just follow whatever Apple shoves down their throat, but are less quiet on the "Corporations suck, man" front.

I don't think people care that they are making money hand over fist. It's the tactics (cheap labor, etc.) to get that money. They are solid, reliable products, so I can see them making money and selling a lot. But, they treat those that make the products like shit.

 

[Jagger100]

Because perhaps they actually deliver products that satisfy their customers ... do you really believe that Apple consumers would repeatedly return to a company that didn't satisfy their needs at some level ... especially since in the USA most people buy phones from their carriers (who sell and support all major brands now) so they have the choice to buy practically any phone they want

They deliver status and style and a safe bet for people who don't want to think about the choices, but also don't want to make a public 'mistake'. The anti-choice people who are actually relieved when they have choices taken away from them.

Their profits are purely because of the above and the ridiculous mark up that and buying on 'time' allows them to charge.

Apple is popular mainly in the US because in the US phones can be baked into the monthly service charge of a minimum period which means you're making a time payment . In most other countries, you have to buy the phone outright. Hence they care more about gettting value from the purchase. Hence they don't buy Apple.

 

[Advil]

My point was exactly that. The silly markup and the method by which they both maintain such a markup and somehow convince people who are otherwise frugal tightwads to overspend like movie stars on products that really don't have anything special or compelling other than their proprietary ecosystem.

Good on Apple I guess. Terrible for the rest of the industry that's trying to innovate anything that is outside of Apple's sphere.

 

[MScrip]

Ars left out the meat of the numbers, though, which is that Apple's share of the global smartphone market has fallen to 20%...! Ars has always been an Apple shill, though. Years ago when the iPhone was new all you heard about from Ars was Apple's smartphone market share---which was at one time above 70%. Now all you hear about from Ars is Apple's supposed share of the profits--they haven't brought up smartphone market share in years, because is Apple getting clobbered there. It's really kind of funny...

The iPhone has NEVER had a significant global market share.

It's always been higher in the US... but not the world. And we usually talk about worldwide numbers when we discuss market share.

So no... the iPhone's global market share has not "fallen to 20%"

It's been between 15-20% for quite some time.

But what is market share? Simple... someone adds up all the worldwide smartphone sales for the quarter... then they figure out how many came from each manufacturer.

Last quarter... the entire mobile industry sold 345 million smartphones. Apple sold 61 million iPhones. So that means Apple had about 18% market share in the April 2015 quarter.

Market share is like a report card at the end of the quarter. It fun to look at the percentages... but it doesn't really say a lot about the health or success of a company.

You probably look at Apple's 18% smartphone market share and think that it's not high enough. But at the same time... Apple sells over 200 million iPhones a year.

It's kinda hard to feel sorry for them, right?

 

[kbrickley]

My point was exactly that. The silly markup and the method by which they both maintain such a markup and somehow convince people who are otherwise frugal tightwads to overspend like movie stars on products that really don't have anything special or compelling other than their proprietary ecosystem.

Good on Apple I guess. Terrible for the rest of the industry that's trying to innovate anything that is outside of Apple's sphere.

Perhaps I am a bit biased but I don't see that big a difference in pricing ... I checked Amazon UK and they show an iPhone 6 plus 64 GB for about $840 while a Galaxy S6 64GB is around $950 ... that doesn't appear to be a substantial price difference in favor of Samsung ... also, since the rest of the industry is 80%+ of the market I am not sure how Apple is the one holding them back from innovating

I will disclose I own an iPhone (my third) and I own an iPad (my second) ... I own no other Apple products, nor do I desire to but I will likely buy another of each of the previous because of the number of Apps I use on my phone and tablet and the fact that both work for my needs (I also own a Windows PC which I hope to upgrade at the end of the year ... if the new company that just bought my existing company doesn't start layoffs)

Personally I find it a bit insulting on both sides of the equation (and this applies to everything that has a side) when one group suggests that the group that doesn't share their choice or predilection is somehow mentally deficient or inferior ... maybe I have become more Zen or Taoist in my old age but I don't really care whether one likes Intel or AMD (I like Intel) or Nvidia or AMD (I like NVidia) or Windows or OSX or Linux (I like Windows) ... if your choice works for you then power to you, but it isn't necessary to suggest that anyone who isn't a member of your club is the deficient one

 

[63jax]

i never taught i would see so many iphone fans here, we are supposed to know some shit about tech, unlike apple fanbois, who just follow what Apple marketing said, and yet there are full of them even here. i'm sorry, i can't help myself not to associate iphone users with people like the Kardashians or Bieber, please don't take it too personally.

 

[MrCaffeineX]

What other argument is there that matters? They're a business. They aren't in it to be nice to you, they're in it to make money.

While it is accurate that a business' primary motivation is to make a profit, there are definitely other considerations. We have regressed as a society in some ways where it has become not only acceptable, but a defensible position, for businesses to make that profit at any cost. The destruction of the financial sector, the mortgage crisis, and the resulting Great Recession, were caused by a number of factors - one of those was a desire on the part of businesses to make every effort to maximize profits in the short term, without regard to the long term health of the company, the economy, or the country as a whole. While I do not like the current interpretation that corporations are people too, the flip side is that if we are accepting corporations as having the same legal rights as individuals, shouldn't they also have the same responsibilities?

 

[MrCaffeineX]

92% of the profits because apple has the best marketing. They are able to convince a shit ton of people to buy iphones.

Post-purchase, customers do more advertising for apple by taking sexy or naked selfies in the mirror, prominently holding up iphones.

EVERYONE is advertising for apple.
See what I mean?

And they say video games are hyper-sexualizing women and reducing them to simple objects of desire?

 

[Deleted member 108676]

Generally, Apple users used to be going for the underdog. Anti-Corporate, fight the man kind of stuff. Now, they just follow whatever Apple shoves down their throat, but are less quiet on the "Corporations suck, man" front.

I don't think people care that they are making money hand over fist. It's the tactics (cheap labor, etc.) to get that money. They are solid, reliable products, so I can see them making money and selling a lot. But, they treat those that make the products like shit.

And Samsung phones are made in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory? Give me a break.

 

[Darunion]

Each time I have purchased a smart phone it typically comes down to about 3 choice and i play around on excel to compare/contrast the phones. People like to make themselves feel better by insulting others (meanwhile we all are buying into the smartphone thing). You realize that both sides a drinking the ''koolaid" but it comes down to are you a Hi-C person or Koolaid? People will defend apple or samsung with furious efforts but honestly does it matter what I buy? All this fighting and comparing and searching just for a phone we keep at best for two years.


I want my old flip phone back that I only used to have to charge on weekends.

While we are at it, I drink COKE! Not like you pespi drinking p***ies! /sarcasm

 

[Darunion]

And Samsung phones are made in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory? Give me a break.

Usually both companies use the same contract manufacturers so when you go to one you might sometimes see one line building iphones and on the other side a line building galaxys lol.

 

[Deleted member 108676]

Usually both companies use the same contract manufacturers so when you go to one you might sometimes see one line building iphones and on the other side a line building galaxys lol.

That was my point.

 

[Youn]

I want my old flip phone back that I only used to have to charge on weekends.

I just upgraded to a flip phone, it lasts 2 weeks before charging!!

You can still find them in best buy, target, walmart, etc... 15 bucks up-front cost, around 7 each month, no contract...

 

[DocSavage]

I just upgraded to a flip phone, it lasts 2 weeks before charging!!

You can still find them in best buy, target, walmart, etc... 15 bucks up-front cost, around 7 each month, no contract...

Phone calls are maybe 1% of what I use my smart phone for. I'd probably get more use out of one of those worthless smart watches.

 

[Darunion]

I just upgraded to a flip phone, it lasts 2 weeks before charging!!

You can still find them in best buy, target, walmart, etc... 15 bucks up-front cost, around 7 each month, no contract...

Nice!!!

that 7 a month would sure be amazing. Might have to re-evaluate my needs when this contract is up.

 

[mi7chy]

I just upgraded to a flip phone, it lasts 2 weeks before charging!!

You can still find them in best buy, target, walmart, etc... 15 bucks up-front cost, around 7 each month, no contract...

You couldn't pay me to suffer with a flip phone.

Even better is the iPhone 6 killer, Moto G 2013, for free when on sale at Best Buy for $25 with $25 reward credit.

You can use it without a plan with free WIFI everywhere with Google Voice 7-digit number and Hangouts/Dialer for free inbound/outbound calls and SMS within North America. Use it as stand-alone GPS navigation without data with free Nokia Here offline maps.

As for battery life it lasts 11 days with always-on WIFI without WIFI optimization. Going to retest with WIFI optimization on as long as I can receive inbound calls and SMS.

Can anyone do better than free? Without five fingering.

 

[brettjrob]

Each time I have purchased a smart phone it typically comes down to about 3 choice and i play around on excel to compare/contrast the phones. People like to make themselves feel better by insulting others (meanwhile we all are buying into the smartphone thing). You realize that both sides a drinking the ''koolaid" but it comes down to are you a Hi-C person or Koolaid? People will defend apple or samsung with furious efforts but honestly does it matter what I buy? All this fighting and comparing and searching just for a phone we keep at best for two years.


I want my old flip phone back that I only used to have to charge on weekends.

While we are at it, I drink COKE! Not like you pespi drinking p***ies! /sarcasm

Never really understood this argument, as often as it gets made. Of course consumer choices and market share distribution matter in a competitive, quickly-evolving market like smartphones.

I would submit that Apple's extreme popularity and ridiculous profits have driven many other manufacturers to emulate the iPhone in various ways over time. As someone who loathes almost every design choice of the iPhone, this is definitely a bad thing.

Now, obviously if I individually talk 2 or 3 people out of choosing an iPhone, it's not going to make any practical difference. But I understand why people "campaign" for/against certain brands in general, as the industry will respond to what consumers choose.