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Comment by davidedicillo | Hacker News Reader

Why people can't accept the fact that Apple doesn't care about having biggest market share. Of course if they can they'll be happy to take it like for the mp3 players market. At the moment, looking at the numbers, Android is eating market share mostly from Apple's other competitors. Remember, this is not a race to be the company who makes the most money, it's just about making tons of money, and this is what Apple cares about. Look at the computer marktet, they don't care in selling more pc than Dell, they care of making a boatload of profit, even with their 7%.

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Part of the point of the article was that Steve seems to be acting like he does care. His recent rantings make it look like he's upset with the surging market share that android is experiencing and is trying to paint it as less than it is. If he really doesn't care then why is he talking so much about it?

Because more important than the market share is the stock market, and a lot of those people still think like this author that the market share is the number they should focus on. Talking about the iOS market share is more a way to keep this people's confidence than a reflection of Apple's strategy. Apple's current market share is just a by-product of their profit machine.

I think they care, in fact they have the biggest market share on single devices and probably will. There could be millions of Android devices but it is important for Apple that Ipod Touch and Iphones are the first sold device in the market speaking as hardware not software.

Why? Because of mass production, the first one has enormous advantages in components price, and that is the reason for ipod touch.

Also being number one means no single software vendor or developer could ignore them like Adobe, Autodesk and others did when Windows became so widespread. Remember how Apple had to create Final Cut Pro because it was being left behind.

> Apple doesn't care about having biggest market share

If this is true, why did Jobs make such a big deal about market share during the earnings call? Shouldn't he have just ignored that topic?

Probably because everyone else seems to think that market share is so important. I'm not sure why. Look at Apple's current position as a minority PC vendor.

I think Steve is trying to make the point that the iOS ecosystem is huge, healthy, and a much larger play than a smartphone OS.

if the iPhone had infinite color models, he would probably highlight that every chance he had, but that doesn't make it a priority in their strategy. But of course if you are passing a company like RIM that represented the concept of smartphone for years, that's something you want to tell people about.

You don't ignore the topic when your on an earnings call unless you want some really bad articles written. You could do like he did with the flash question ("we love flash memory") or you can give them some stats. The actual quotes (not the summarized crud in the article) were about on par with what was said about Apple at the last Google event.

The big take away from the call really wasn't Android versus iPhone, it was iPhone versus Blackberry. The "aw shucks" businesses are adopting iPhone / iPad all on their own without an Apple push is a pretty big shot at RIM. Add to that the whole 7" screen thing, it really looks like Apple is thinking of RIM customers as up for grabs.

I find it funny that a column called "Android Power" isn't talking about cool Android stuff. Seems like another "I need some page views" article.

Why people can't accept the fact that Apple doesn't care about having biggest market share

Thank you for bringing up the biggest lie in technology. It's a transparent loser's speech that, thankfully, we've yet to actually hear Apple incant.

Apple is trying quite hard to get the biggest market share: Did you happen to catch Steve bragging about leaving RIM in their rearview? How desperately he compares iPhone activations to Android activations?

Have you noticed the incredible quantities of lucre that Apple is dumping on mass media advertising lately? (I don't have the numbers, but it is, by far, the #1 advertised brand from my perspective). Have you noticed that Apple is now making products at virtually every price point?

Apple is the very definition of a mass market company. They are not a niche or a luxury maker, and delusions to that effect are simply bizarre.

Sure, they don't sell a discount iPhone, but that's entirely because consumers are accustomed to subsidized models, so going from $600 to $500 really makes no difference (it really doesn't matter whether the phone is $200, $150, $99, $49, or even FREE when each comes bound with a $3500 smartphone contract).

If people were accustomed to buying devices without subsidization, Apple would have the entire low-end market covered. On the Android front by far the most popular phones are the high end phones like the Galaxy S and the Droid 2, which are hardly inexpensive devices.

Apple came incredibly close to achieving a brilliant strategic lock-in to the nascent smartphone market that would have locked them in as the default choice: Many organizations had a mobile strategy that simply relied upon "releasing an iPhone app", creating a network effect where you were either onboard with the iPhone, or you're a second class citizen. Here on HN there were quite a few single-person startups that had a business plan involving nothing more than creating an iPhone app, yielding a strong anti-Android bias -- having multiple platforms is just a PITA, right?

Remember, this is not a race to be the company who sells the most units, it's just about making tons of money, and this is what Apple cares about.

I edited that slightly to what I suspect you meant to say. It's another ridiculous lie that we keep hearing.

Apple had the "niche market" for quite a few years. Yeah it led them to desperately go to Microsoft, hat in hand, begging for some "we'll get the anti-trust police off your backs" payoffs (which they got, funding the recovered Apple).

HTC is a relatively new smartphone company. They've been going gangbusters on the backs of Android. Motorola was in complete mobile collapse so their balance sheet isn't quite so great right now, but without Android they would have been done. On and on. The "Apple makes more profit" angle is nice, I guess, if you own Apple shares, but otherwise it's completely meaningless.

I don't want Android to dominate. In fact I hope that RIM gets some mojo back (and that QNX plays a part. Anyone who did comp sci in Ontario is generally in love with QNX, because it's a beautiful OS), that Windows Mobile 7 can get an R2 out soon that fixes many of the failings, and of course Apple is and won't be going anywhere, and will continue to provide technology kungfu.

We need a vibrant, competitive market where one person -- like Steve Jobs -- isn't making technology decrees for an entire industry (see: Flash).

The "Apple makes more profit" angle is nice, I guess

51% of profit share, $238 of profit per phone sold. If market share was all they cared about, they could drop the price of the iphone by $200.

http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/31/making-it-up-in-volume-how-...

edit: formatting

If market share was all they cared about, they could drop the price of the iphone by $200.

If they dropped the price by $200, it would have a negligible impact on sales. If there was an advantage to hitting a lower price point in the subsidized device market, they would already have an iPhone4 LE or something out.

In the unsubsidized market they do have such a thing out -- it's called the iPod Touch. Which factors heavily into iOS propaganda.

Though they learned with the iPhone 3GS -- when they kept the 3G around for the people who apparently couldn't pull together $150 -- that ever burger flippers ponied up for the big boy.

Consumers, especially in North America (but to a degree worldwide) are addicted to subsidized phones. From my wireless company I can pick up an iPhone 4 for $159, or a Samsung Galaxy S -- the hottest selling Android device -- for $179, the contracts for both cost the same.

The iPad, as others have pointed out, is one of the cheapest decent tablets you can buy. For the media player market Apple has the entire market covered, hitting as discount of a market as exists.

Of course you're playing to the "iPhone is a luxury brand" misnomer that is utterly ridiculous. The hottest selling Android devices all have a post-subsidization price virtually equivalent to the iPhone product, and most of them require the user to then go out and pick up their own high capacity SD card.

That asymco piece, by the way, is horrendous on so many levels. It's a pandering piece of the worst kind.

> If they dropped the price by $200, it would have a negligible impact on sales.

> [...]

> From my wireless company I can pick up an iPhone 4 for $159

Now realize that if they dropped the unsubsidized price of the iPhone 4 by $200, you could get it for free subsidized.

> In the unsubsidized market they do have such a thing out -- it's called the iPod Touch.

Actually, in the unsub market they also have an iPhone. It just isn't available in the US. The touch doesn't help them get phone market share (though it does help them get more devices out there).

Now realize that if they dropped the unsubsidized price of the iPhone 4 by $200, you could get it for free subsidized.

That's great, and obvious, and even specifically mentioned in my post. Are you autistic?

Actually, in the unsub market they also have an iPhone.

Actually, I was talking about the iPhone 4 value option (which was pretty obvious), which is the iPod Touch 4th gen. Effectively giving you an iPhone 4 minus 3G/voice for just a couple hundred dollars.

> HTC is a relatively new smartphone company.

Wrong. HTC is a relatively new smartphone brand, they've been making smartphones since 2000. They created the first Windows Mobile smartphone, the first 3G Windows Mobile smartphone, the Palm Treo 650, the iPaq and the first Android smartphone. They were probably the major WiMo smartphone builder in WiMo's heydays (and they might very well still be).

HTC is a relatively new smartphone company? By that metric, RIM is just getting started building communication devices.

>HTC is a relatively new smartphone brand

Yes, that's quite clearly the point. If Foxconn -- the makers of the iPhone -- came out with a smartphone, they would be a new smartphone company, witty caustic replies notwithstanding.

Except that Foxconn is a manufacturing company that builds to spec. HTC designs the hardware and does white labeling. That is a VERY important distinction.

> Yes, that's quite clearly the point.

Then it's a fucking stupid point. Brand doesn't equal known-how and HTC has more than a decade of smartphone design and build under its belt. 3 times as much as Apple.

> If Foxconn -- the makers of the iPhone -- came out with a smartphone

Foxconn aren't the makers of the iPhone, they're its manufacturers, they weren't involved at any point of its design. HTC never built phones according to external designs (though they do build to match external specs when not selling under their own brand).

Therefore

> they would be a new smartphone company

Yes, Foxconn would be a new smartphone company because they have 0 experience in actually making a smartphone. HTC has 10 years of experience in the field at this point. They're not a "new" smartphone company.

Apple is trying quite hard to get the biggest market share

I'd argue that the key difference is priorities. Traditionally, consumer-electronics companies (Dell is a great example) have pursued market share first, and then looked for ways to translate that into profitability. Apple, in recent years, seems to reverse that: first they aim for a good profit margin, then they try go for market share.

We've seen this with their various lines of laptops, with the iPod, with the iPhone, etc., and judging from their quarterly statements it seems to work.

Saying that Apple doesn't care about having the biggest market share is not the same thing as saying they are a niche or luxury maker. Markets don't always divide so neatly. There is a vast expanse between where competitors are sufficiently differentiated to maintain decent margins instead of sliding off into a slow spiral of beige doom. This is actually what the smartphone market looks like if you include everyone else or break down by handset vendor, but people seem to have an aversion to pie charts with more than two colors.

It might be easier to understand if you say that Apple cares less about market share than the individual Android handset makers do. If Apple loses share to "Android", that's not that bad for them, because their profits are still astronomical.

But who is "Android"? Google isn't making much money off of it, and none of the handset makers are making what Apple makes. They're stuck in competition with each other and their product is mostly the same thing. They're all trying to differentiate, but with what? The Sense UI? Bunding a copy of Avatar? NASCAR apps?

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