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Comment by jsz0 | Hacker News Reader

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." -- Steve Balmer.

Apple has 10.8% of the market share. Blackberry's market share grew by a larger margin than Apple's. Nokia has 41% of the market, followed by rim.

And this is the market share for smart phones, which is itself a subset of all cell usage (12.7% of the cell market). So Apple has 11% of 13% of all cell usage, which is the context of Ballmer's quote. He also talked about it in terms of Apple's original pricing, which certainly was far more prohibitive than current pricing.

Given that Apple only supports 1 carrier in the US, I think 10.8% of the smart-phone market is a great start. I know a lot of people that would love to buy an iPhone if only it supported T-Mobile (without unlocking) or Verizon/Sprint.

By the way, do you happen to have a link for those market share numbers?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10245339-37.html

Apple and RIM combined will have an estimated ~%58 of the profits of the ENTIRE mobile handset industry in 2009:

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apple_responsible_about_...

Have no mistake that Nokia and others are playing catchup.

Not sure how you got your numbers. Even in your (somewhat biased) link it says Nokia has 56% of the profits of the entire mobile handset industry.

This was widely reported. You didn't read the article closely. Nokia is projected to have 56% of the low end market profits. Not the whole market as per apple and rim.

Why am I being downmodded? The source is the Wall Street Journal quoting a Deutsche Bank analyst.

We are both wrong on pieces of this. Nokia holds 56% of the entire market profit, in 2008 (the last year for which there is real data). RIM and Apple are projected to have 58% of the profits in 2009, which I am a little skeptical on -- in the current economy, I would expect the low end handsets to do better.

in the current economy, I would expect the low end handsets to do better.

They may sell more units, but they won't make very much profit, if any.

I think that market share is usually a bad way of looking at Apple's numbers.

Macs are only x% of computers, but that means nothing when comparing with Windows or Dell. Apple sells the OS and the hardware. To look at it as market share, you would need to compare it to both OS's and hardware. With hardware, the market share outlook hits more problems. Apple can get a higher margin when it sells say memory then Dell can. Market share is not indicative of much.

Iphones are (not soley) in the category of phones that people buy because they want that phone specifically. They'll switch carriers, delay purchases etc. The majority of phones are sold to consumers that will pick a phone in-store, get the cheapest one, choose flexibly from a range, etc.

That kind of leverage gets you higher margins and better deals with carriers.

Basically, you can't look at market share without looking at margins. Nokia & dell sit at 2%-4% while Apple & RIM sit at around 15% - 20%.

CEOs of competing companies rarely praise the products of their adversaries

Then stay neutral. Trash-talk is just egg on your face later. There are plenty of neutral ways to deflect that question:

"I think it's an interesting direction for their product, but I'm not convinced that there's a major market there."

A lot less quotable and won't haunt you later.

"You can't watch a video and drive a car. We're focused on music." - Steve Jobs on including videos into iPods

"We're not making a phone." - Steve Jobs on iPhone rumors

A classic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So7qrFO_p44

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