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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st | Hacker News Reader

> Apple utterly dominates the mobile phone CPU landscape,

That seems to be an interesting definition of "dominates". 14% of global smartphones from independents. 24% by Apple's claims. A curious kind of domination.

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I think the @simonh "domination" point is that Apple has dominated the mobile phone CPU PROFITABILITY landscape, not the SALES landscape, and I for one feel @simonh has a valid point.

To emphasise, according to Counterpoint Research as of last year (https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-handset-market-o...) Apple is able to maintain 75% of the total profits on the phone market, while Samsung only captures 13% and others (including Xiaomi and the BBK group) capturing the remaining 12% with no single company peaking above 5%. Apple could store two-thirds of its profits offshore (waiting for an opportunate tax break) while only moving a third of that profits into actual use and it will still be better than Samsung's position.

(Rant specific to HN: some even are comparing IIS sales. Geez, it seems that most here are not willing to understand correctly what the GGP's comment pointed out is that Apple has a massive R&D budget that is unbeatable.)

If you're talking about CPU profitability, then look at Qualcomm profits, not Xiaomi.

I read “dominates” as has the “dominate share of the profits for the industry”. Not dominates shipments.

By that metric Microsoft utterly dominates the web server market.

Yes, but that's not the point here. I don't know what Microsoft does with their IIS profits but Apple is definitely reinvesting them back into making better phones.

> I don't know what Microsoft does with their IIS profits

That's ok. Microsoft doesn't either ;)

The point is that you've chosen a questionable benchmark that is only correct if you adopt a very spwsific point of view.

I'm sorry but I have to label this as a bad-faith attack. "dominates" in this context means being the fastest available, not necessarily that most people will buy that. It's like saying "the i9/Ryzen 7 dominates" and then answering with "most people buys Celerons/Athlons". You need to read the context of the conversation: it is about performance domination and not usershare domination.

And yet this subthread is filled with several people who have yet a 3rd (maybe even a 4th) interpretation. I don't dispute that yours could be the intended one, but let's not pretend that it's completely clear.

The iPhones are not always the fastest and certainly not dominating.

I read that as mobile CPU performance is where Apple dominates. And they do. This is why people have been wondering for years when Apple would put one of their mobile chips (or a derivative) in a laptop.

> That seems to be an interesting definition of "dominates". 14% of global smartphones from independents.

Exactly right! It always amazes me to see the bubble some people here live in (and that's the best possible interpretation of these sort of comments; the worst is that it's a coordinated/paid astroturf attempt) We just spec'd several new computers here and they're all Xeon/NVidia. Nothing else can meet our needs.

The thread is about performance and technology, and Apple dominates the phone CPU landscape in those areas. I thought that was clear as my comment mainly addressed technology and the driving forces behind it, but I’m sorry for the confusion.

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