Originally posted by Bardock42
The 16 GB iPhone 5 cost the consumer 199$ on contract (649$ off contract) on its US launch on September 21st 2012, the 16GB iPhone 5C cost the consumer 99$ on contract (549$ off contract) on its US launch on September 20th 2013. That is a 100$ in both cases off contract and on contract. The contentious iSupply numbers that state that the iPhone 5C cost Apple 12$ less than the iPhone 5 cost Apple are obviously also the same whether they are off or on contract. To claim that the point iPhone 5C must be solely the subsidised market is just not supported by your calculations, really nothing is supported by those calculations.
That's a strawman. Again, you're adding an absolutist label to my position when none ever existed. Marketing a phone to a specific price (by contractual negotiations with carriers) does not mean that they did not consider any other business aspect for their product. That's just asinine of you to assume.
Also, you've repeated yourself, again. You do not have a good point, at all. Clearly, the point of the phone was to sell it for $100 less despite costing only $12 less to make. This supports my position, not yours.
But, by all means: if you have some numbers that show a majority of phones were sold at the $549 (and they can even include the higher capacity, $649 5c) price point, I'll concede the point. 🙂
Hell, even better: I'll make this easier on you. If you can show me that even just 30% of sales went to the full price models, as opposed to the subsidized models, I'll concede the point. 😉
Originally posted by Bardock42
Sure, I accept that you meant the market is now almost saturated at the 66%, fair enough.
Okay, good. I feel we are coming to an agreement.
Originally posted by Bardock42
However I disagree that nothing's going to change in the last part until complete saturation.
Wait...wait...really? A strawman? Come on, dude? Who are you disagreeing with? That's not a position I took.
To quote my words:
"One more year is not going to change much in the market share. It's pretty much done."
That's not the same thing as: "...nothing's going to change in the last part until complete saturation."
Originally posted by Bardock42
To assume that the market share numbers won't change is a bold, and imo, unfounded claim.
Well, I mean...whoever you're arguing against (some imaginary dude made of straw, I would assume), yeah, I agree with you. We should expect some minor changes this last year. But nothing like 11% shifts like previous years have seen.
Originally posted by Bardock42
That's a more broad assertion than what I was making.
Ahhh, good. I'm glad you pointed out that I misinterpreted your words. My bad!
Look, see? This is how you do it. "It" being, of course, able to admit you misinterpreted someone's words and added meaning that wasn't there.
Originally posted by Bardock42
Of course Apple and Google's actions in the US affect other markets, however so do their actions in China (soon to be Apple's biggest market), in the EU, in Japan, etc.
Yeah, yeah. We agree, here.
But you said:
"Additionally your claim of the US market influencing the other markets, does not hold up in the case of smartphones..."
Which is definitely wrong, even in context with that part of our conversation. Clearly, the US Market influences the other markets. That may definitely change as China's middle-class expands, of course. Their market could end up dictating some of the North American trends.
Originally posted by Bardock42
My point was more that the US smartphone market is an outlier as the true cost of the phones are almost completely obfuscated by the carrier pricing, hence why Apple is doing considerably better market share wise in the United States than almost anywhere else in the world (except Japan, iirc).
Three things, here:
1. So other markets do not get subsidized phones? I did not know that! I assumed, at least in the European market where you have many carriers, that they got subsidized phones.
Edit - It would appear that that is wrong. "Europe’s initial refusal to subsidize phones – now most carriers worldwide subsidize..."
The article's overall claim is that, eventually, subsidized phones will disappear.
2. I agree that the true cost of pricing is obfuscated. Like I said, earlier, the companies do not release how much they have to pay Apple for their subsidized sales. I strongly suspect that this is due to carriers negotiating different pricing. For instance, Verizon and AT&T likely have more negotiating power than T-Mobile in the US Market. So they likely get a better "margins" deal than T-Mobile.
3. It looks like you're saying that the subsidized market, in the US, is such a ginormous deal in mobile phone hardware sales as to completely change the game/marketing dynamic compared to unsubsidized markets? If so...are you, rather, agreeing with me on that particular topic? To me, it seems like it.
Edit - Also, that article I quoted seems to agree with your overall point about subsidy: it will eventually end after market saturation because it is not sustainable so the market must change after they reach saturation.
Originally posted by Bardock42
Apple is the uncontended market leader in the United States. Samsung is a somewhat distant second, further trailed by LG, Motorola and HTC. And while the Android OS as a whole is used by considerably more people (worldwide, and some more people in the US), Apple collects almost all of the profits. HTC most definitely has to react in some way before they go bankrupt.
Yes, you've stated this before. "This" being that you don't view the OS comparison as fair because multiple electronics manufacturers make Android phones and only one makes Apple (let's ignore the fact, just for the sake of this particular discussion, that all of them use multiple companies to manufacturing their phone, cradle to grave). Rather, you prefer a manufacturer comparison. Say, Apple to Samsung instead of iOS to Android.
But I view this as Google vs. Apple. Google has greatly diversified their ability to hit many different markets. Gotta give Apple credit, though, for doing awesome in pretty much all markets (for mobile phones) they compete in and, imo, they are likely going to start destroying the competition in the 4.5" (or beyond) category if they deliver a handset that costs $200, subsidized.
I want to talk about that, for a moment. Some tech blog I was reading estimated that it would cost Apple $10-$20 more to make a 4.5" phone (and still keep the same great quality but scaled up to that size). They stated that it would be in Apple's best interests to eat the margin cost and still sell it at the $200 subsidized price point because they should sell mad-crazy in that new market and, therefore, still make good money (I can explain how this may be a good marketing choice, from a numbers standpoint, if you want...but there is...dammit...what is that word? I forget...it is something like a "nexus" where having the different price point becomes profitable because it sold x number of devices and the difference in the margins is made up when you reach x...do you know what that term is? It has been a few semesters since I took that class). For instance, people like me who used to hate iOS but now am okay with it (because Apple pretty much fixed all the things I hated about iOS). If they made a larger screen, dude...I'd probably buy the new iPhone even if it was $300. Apple makes great phones!
Originally posted by Bardock42
When something you say can be reasonably interpreted in multiple ways, and furthermore its literal interpretation is inaccurate, then it is not childish to point out which interpretation of the statement one takes to be correct.
Uh, how about no. The literal interpretation did not have any language in it that could have lent itself to an exclusionary position. Within conversational context, the assumption should have been "adding" to their product line, not shifting their entire product line.
You simply got confused when you should not have. I don't know if it was because you wanted to argue about something or if you were trolling (like you used to do 5+ years ago). Accept it and move on. I'm tired of talking about it and I don't need to rub it in that you were wrong about something.
Originally posted by Bardock42
Again you seem to insist that me stating my thoughts on a matter is somehow ascribing thoughts to yours. That is by no means what I intend to do.But I can understand if you feel I have been misrepresenting your position in parts of our conversation, if you are willing to repeat it in different words, so I understand, I'd love to read it once again. Perhaps there has been a miscommunication, I assure you it would not have been on purpose, however.
You can definitely go back and read our conversation to see where you went wrong. In fact, I outlined, a few posts ago, exactly where you went wrong with my words.