After claiming 27% of US smartphone market share in the last quarter of 2007, the iPhone has slipped to 20% for the first quarter of 2008. Where have all the iPhone buyers gone? Apparently to RIM and Palm (why!) who saw their market share increase in the same period. For Palm, the gains can be credited to the rise in popularity of the Centro and for RIM, well no one doubts their powerhouse status around these parts.
There could be plenty of reasons why iPhone market share has slipped. For one, the shortages could be a big part of the puzzle here, people aren’t buying iPhones because there aren’t any iPhones to buy. Another reason could possibly be educated consumers who realize that the iPhone 3G is imminent thus delaying their purchase. Not to kick the iPhone when it’s down, but the price and carrier-locked nature of the iPhone could also play a role in its diminished market share.
Regardless, the iPhone is still driving smartphone interest and increasing the market’s sales and its competitors are posting lower market share than a year ago. My personal take? I want to see device-by-device sales numbers. The iPhone is a one man army against multiple fronts from RIM and Palm yet still manages to be more than competitive. Narrow down the numbers and specifying the models could paint an entirely different picture.
Or maybe not. iPhone 3G to the rescue? What do you think?
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We’ve heard it before, Google has an iPhone fixation. Well it’s looking like that fixation works both ways - apparently the earlier numbers we saw that said the iPhone was on the web more than any other mobile web browser were, how shall we say it? ….Ridiculously conservative.
Google sees 50 times more web searches from iPhones than they do from any other mobile browser:
Google on Wednesday said it had seen 50 times more searches on Apple‘s iPhone than any other mobile handset, adding weight to the group’s confidence at being able to generate significant revenues from the mobile internet.
“We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,” Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. - Financial Times
If you still doubt that the iPhone was the #2 smartphone in the US, you can stop now.
Just. Wow.
We’re looking at just over 6 months of sales and the iPhone is rocking the marketshare in the Smartphone category like you wouldn’t believe. According to Canalys (whose numbers we’ve admittedly doubted before, but these results look pretty solid), the iPhone has reached 28% marketshare among Smartphones in the US and 7% worldwide. That puts it at #2 in the US and #3 worldwide. They’re even ahead of Motorola.
Also, the iPhone is beating the pants off of the PalmOS (down to 9%) and also Windows Mobile (21%) in the United States. The only question left is whether or not Apple can gain on RIM’s imposing 41% share. That will require converting a lot of business users.
Actually, the other question is whether or not Apple can maintain that share without releasing a 3G iPhone in the near future. The drumbeat of analyst, stockholder, and most importantly consumer desire for the 3G iPhone is going to get steadily louder in the coming months.
Canalys [via GearDiary]
Apple just posted their quarterly results, and the results are great. Apple sold a staggering amount of Macs this quarter. iPod sales are still growing. They sold 400,000 more Macs than they’ve ever sold, 2.1 million altogether. They’re selling their stuff like gangbusters in Europe. They earned a dollar per share over the last quarter. Apple has sold about 1.4 million iPhones, and the small-to-medium business segment loves the iPhone. Oh, and perhaps 250,000 of those iPhones were sold to unlockers. So yeah, business as usual. Look for more of the same next quarter, I’ll predict — once Leopard is out, there’s going to be a stronger-than-usual rush to get new machines as people upgrade.
Highlights from a report from a report by Strategy Analytics:
- iPhone tops AT&T sales chart at 13% of AT&T’s device sales
- 4th best-selling phone in U.S., selling 1.1 million units. Total # of iPhones sold: maybe 1.325 million
- based on current trajectory, iPhone will be #1 best-selling phone in the next quarter or two
- current #1 is still the RAZR V3
- two age segments standing out that are purchasing iPhone in droves: 20-30 and 50-60.
Having owned a RAZR and been frustrated with the poor software shipped on it, I will do a little dance when it’s no longer #1.
figure 1: The Orange Treo 680 is what I used before I got an iPhone. This and a featurephone, actually, for when I wanted to take a non-useless picture of something. I used both AT&T and T-Mobile.
Let me put on my Carnac the Magnificent hat and guess that you were on T-Mobile too. There’s an interesting survey report done by the NPD group recently that caught my eye, specifically because it names Treos. I still have love for Treos, but I’m off the wagon in terms of using one regularly at least until their Linux OS ships. But here are the fact nuggets that they report:
- iPhone owners were 10 times more likely to have owned a Treo
- iPhone owners were 3 times more likely to use a T-Mobile phone, such as the Sidekick
- iPhone owners were 3 times more likely to switch from T-Mobile or Alltel
- iPhone owners were no more likely to buy an iPhone if they had a Blackberry
They don’t break down the numbers for you much in the press release, but as always these reports are meant to be bought and sold by industry analysts and stock market guys and stuff. I’d like to believe that they have a breakdown of PalmOS and Windows Mobile in there, but they don’t specify in their press release. The only quote nugget is from NPD’s Director of Industry Analysis Ross Rubin:
“The iPhone’s Internet and media capabilities have resonated with consumers — especially those who previously owned Treos and Sidekicks. Its advanced operating system makes it competitive with smartphones for many tasks, while its sleek design and lack of expandability is reminiscent of fashion phones”
Speaking personally, I had a devil of a time with getting media on the Treo. It’s just not convenient to use it to consume media at all. You need the special headphones, you need to drag your files into which directory on the SD card again, or worse, you use Palm Desktop to do it. My loathing for Palm Desktop and Palm Conduits really knows no bounds. Even with the iSync conduits, it was still a pain. Oh, and my loathing for Blazer — that knows no bounds too. I wrestled with Java to get Opera Mini installed, juggled my 4-5 SD cards, trying to remember what was on which one, etc. I wanted to like Windows Mobile, but missed the screen resolution and couldn’t cope with the interface. Syncing on the iPhone is quick, easy, and seems to take much less time than anything on Palm Desktop would ever do.
Reuters reports, based off a video with Scott Moritz from thestreet.com that Apple is doubling their iPhone production for the 4th quarter. Their new manufacturing plan calls for ramping up from 1.54 million iPhones next quarter to 2.7 million iPhones. In terms of iPhones to be manufactured this year, the target for iPhone manufacture is now 4.8 million, up from 3.6 million. Note that the number doesn’t reflect sales, just manufacture.
Apple unveiled a new press release, they’ve just sold their one millionth phone. It’s worthwhile to note that Jobs tends to set easily achievable goals so that they can be demolished. He wouldn’t want to eke by on the “million phones by the end of September” thing on Sept. 28th, that’s not news. If he’s sold one million phones by the 10th instead of the 30th, then he’s 20 days ahead of schedule. And then you think, “Oh, the iPhone must be selling really well.” And that’s just one aspect of his Reality Distortion Field. At any rate, the press release is after the break.
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I haven’t heard a peep out of Microsoft for quite some time; not really since Mossberg’s D5. Nonetheless, Microsoft is in the news today.
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According to a survey by Markitecture (via Ars Technica), only 6% of people polled plan to buy an iPhone in the next year. Only six percent, they say! You know, if they follow through, that could put Apple in front of Microsoft in market share, currently at 5.7% (via Canalys). The article doesn’t say if it was a global or national survey, however.
Markitecture notes that the RAZR had about 6% of the phone market at its peak. Ars Technica doesn’t note the margin of error, but 6% of the global phone market (around 1 billion phones) is 60 million phones. At $500 each that’s 30 billion dollars. Granted, not net profit. If Apple is looking for 20% profit margins, as they’re wont to do, it looks like they’d potentially grab about 6 billion dollars.
It’s starting to look like Jobs set the bar low in January when he announced he was looking for 1% of the global phone market. Of course, one doesn’t like to set goals and then miss them, it makes one look bad. But, that’s part of what makes watching Jobs fun. When they destroy the 1% goal, he’s going to act like the most astounded person in the world. Whaaaa?
