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| US: Apple > Samsung; The Netherlands: Samsung > Apple |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-07-14 00:04:24 |
| A fascinating difference in smartphone buying behaviour got highlighted today. In the US, Apple has double the market share of its nearest competitor, Samsung. However, in The Netherlands, the swamp I call home, the situation is completely reversed; Apple sits at 10% of the smartphone market, Samsung at 19.6%. Is this indicative of Europe as a whole? Could German, French, Polish, British, Spanish, Italian, etc. readers give local information from their own countries? I'm intrigued. |
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| Spain |
| By Raziel on 2012-07-14 00:43:20 |
|
In Spain the difference may not be so abysmal, but Android clearly wins. Edited 2012-07-14 00:43 UTC |
 - Score: 1 |
| Rest of the world. |
| By gan17 on 2012-07-14 01:33:26 |
|
Rest of the planet is pretty much the same as Holland. Samsung offer products that cater to almost all the segments (new ones, not iPhones from 3 generationss ago) of the market. The difference is probably greater in Asia and South America, where the average spending power of the middle and low-income class is lower than their US/Euro counterparts. Can't seem to find any recent study/survey results for my country (Singapore) at the moment, but I did stumble across this: http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news... Not really a fan of either manufacturer, to be frank. Both strangle the market in their own way. Edited 2012-07-14 01:35 UTC |
| - Score: 7 |
| Comment by Anonymous Penguin |
| By Anonymous Penguin on 2012-07-14 01:56:57 |
|
I can't find any reliable stats about Italy, but I suspect Samsung wins by a large margin. I know many more people who own a Samsung, including myself, than people who own an iPhone. That is also because of what gan17 says, Samsung doesn't only offer the top, like the Galaxy S2 or S3, they also offer more affordable devices. That is the problem with Apple: whatever they do, they cater only to the wealthy. Edited 2012-07-14 02:00 UTC |
| - Score: 6 |
| This is probably not surprising |
| By someone on 2012-07-14 05:11:04 |
| considering that Apple prices iPhones a lot more aggressively in the US. However, if they decided to come up with an iPhone equivalent of the iPod mini/nano, that would be another thing. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: This is probably not surprising |
| By tanzam75 on 2012-07-14 05:16:15 |
|
Apple does not price iPhones aggressively in the US. It is the carriers that are dipping into their own pockets to reduce the price of the iPhone (and thus boost Apple's overall profits by roughly 10%). Of the 4 national wireless carriers, 3 of them carry the iPhone. All three grant Apple a carrier subsidy that is roughly twice as large as that granted to any other phone. Thus, an iPhone that costs $600 sells for $200 after subsidy. An Android phone that costs $400 also sells for $200 after subsidy. These three carriers are thus hindering sales of other handsets by eliminating their cost advantage over the iPhone. And they're also reducing their own profits by $200 per iPhone sold. But Apple has such a market-dominant position in the US that none of these carriers dares to be the first to break ranks. They can't afford to lose the iPhone. The lone holdout of the national carriers is T-Mobile USA, whose stated position is that subsidies are unhealthy for the industry as a whole. T-Mobile has made many attempts to sell no-subsidy phones in return for a dramatically reduced monthly rate, but have had only limited success thus far. Edited 2012-07-14 05:17 UTC |
| - Score: 9 |
| How quickly people forget... |
| By krreagan on 2012-07-14 05:43:12 |
|
Pre-iphone, the carriers had all the cards and the manufacturers had little say in after sale operation. Free phones for two year contracts that the phone makers barely squeaked out a profit on razor thin profits. Android and Windows phones still don't upgrade except in rare cases. This keeps people buying phones on a regular schedule. Apple comes along and changes the game! Samsung (phone division) would still be selling POS dumb phones for little or no profit without the advent of truly smart phones by Apple. No other phone was anywhere near the iPhone when it came out. It was in a league by itself. It was > three years before a real competitor hit the market so they obviously had not even considered it until it was too late. Remember the $200 is also accompanied by >$1600 per contract period in monthly charges so the carriers are not hurting. The manufactures that can't adapt are going ba-bye! because they have poor managers... which most do... HTC, Nokia, RIM... Hell, Nokia and RIM will be gone in < a year. Either sold for scrap or Tango Uniform! |
| - Score: 0 |
| Samsung > Apple |
| By mfaudzinr on 2012-07-14 06:51:25 |
|
Malaysia: No statistics yet but in term seeing what people are carrying with them (I meet a lot of people daily), there's more Samsung than iPhone. The Note seemed to be extremely popular too. I carry one and I've seen quite a lot of people do to. Even Blackberries are still popular. I hardly see iPhone nowadays. Another indication of how popular Samsung is, their Samsung stores are always swamped especially during the weekends but not so at the Apple stores. One thing that is "Apple > Samsung" is tablets. It's iPad > Samsung/Android tablets. Still I see more and more people are carrying a Samsung tablet, specifically the 7" variation. A few used the tablet as the main phone even. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Wifi Scanning |
| By kalman on 2012-07-14 07:06:23 |
| Recently in my trip in Europe I used to do a wifi scan using Fing ( https://play.google.com/store/app... ) and the mac-address found were 10 times apple ones than the rest (samsung, htc,...). You can do yourself on any public network and you can see the predominance of Apple devices. People buying samsung do not even connect on Internet? |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Wifi Scanning |
| By moondevil on 2012-07-14 07:12:58 |
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In most countries accessing the Internet via UMTS is pretty cheap, so we don't even bother with WiFi. As for the amount of iPhones you have found I would be curious which countries you were travelling, as that is not my experience. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Portugal, Spain, Greece |
| By moondevil on 2012-07-14 07:19:11 |
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Since I travel regularly between the above three countries, I can speak a bit about each one. In Portugal, Android and Symbian clearly win over iPhone. You'll only see iPhones in big cities, like the capital, and most owners belong to the happy society layer that is able to get > 1000€ salary. In Greece, similar situation like Portugal. I never saw a iPhone outside Athens or Thessaloniki areas. In Germany, due to the contracts where iPhones are given for free against two year contracts, you see iPhones everywhere. |
| - Score: 3 |
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