[quote=SK in CV]As long as AAPL has a product that the mobile’s customers want, they’ll keep paying. Did APPL make pretty sweet deals with them? Absolutely. One of the reasons they are among the biggest companies in the world is that they drive the hardest bargains. They are notoriously difficult with both vendors and customers alike. That won’t change. But the mobiles are making money selling iPhones. Unless other manufactures make a device that consumers want more than they want the iPhone, that dynamic is unlikely to change. (disclosure here, I’ve never had an iPhone, nor any other Apple product.)[/quote]
Like flu said, Samsung. Apple sells 26M iPhone. Samsung sells 19M GS3 alone. They have a lot more phones than just the GS3. In total, they sell over 2X the amount of iPhone. Also keep in mind that the GS3 just came out. So the market penetration is nothing like iPhone 4S. Also keep in mind that Samsung churn out phones a lot more quickly than Apple does. So their product is always fresh.
WRT to AAPL’s market share, it’s the growth expectation that gives it the market share it currently command. It doesn’t have the most profit or the largest revenue. If earning growth decline, which it did, investors will take a pause and reevaluate. AAPL have been enjoying the market that have very little good competition to its products. However, going forward, the competition is definitely heating up. Which causes uncertainty about continual earning growth.
I personally think this is the beginning of the end of Apple’s dominance. Android is doing a fine job declaring its dominance. We’ll see how Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 does over the next couple of years but competitions is definitely good for consumer but not good for Apple.
