back to article Asian worries for Samsung and Apple as local brands chop up the market

Figures from research company Canalys indicate both Apple and Samsung are feeling the pinch in the world's two fastest growing mobile markets: China and India. In Q2 2015, one in three smartphones shipped in China came from Huawei or Xiaomi, with the latter being the best-selling smartphone in the Asian giant, with a 15.9 per …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple's market is cyclical

    Let's see how they do in Q4 with the 6S and Q1 with Chinese New Year - the two quarters where they led the Chinese market - before claiming "worries". These stories come around every year as Apple's market share declines as people begin holding off purchases so they can buy the newer model (or get the older model at a bit of a discount)

    But nice job trying to work the "peak Apple" angle back in, guess the stock price correction after such large gains is causing Reg writers to get excited about the possibility they might be able to resuscitate that meme!

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Apple's market is cyclical

      Whilst Apple is mostly a one trick pony these days by selling millions of iPhones they do have other irons in the fire (so to speak).

      There are always those who spout 'Apple is Doomed' even when they beat those Anal(yists) of Wall St forecasts but even if Apple sold close to zero iPhones next quarter they won't go bust. The $200Billion that have in the bank will keep them afloat for quite a while.

      Perhaps Apple are even preparing for a post iPhone era? Who knows. We will just have to wait and see.

      ***Notice that I said 'selling iPhones'. All of us here know that they are Foxconn rebranders and don't make anything apart from the MacPro which they assemble in Texas.

      1. Richard Taylor 2

        Re: Apple's market is cyclical

        I do hope they have some post iPhone plans, negligent if they don't, as Nokia demonstrated, things don't go on for ever. But at the same time, they do design the hardware - even if it is Foxconn who do the manufacturing (as for so many competing companies).

    2. Scoular

      Re: Apple's market is cyclical

      Every manufacturer has a cyclical product line ans they and competitors release new product. Nothing new there.

      What we are seeing is a product maturity effect as the rate of new and useful features declines the second string manufacturers catch up and compete on price. This is a threat for Apple and Samsung which have been at the high priced end of the market. Apple has the fans who will continue to pay more but Samsung is less secure.

      We will benefit by paying less for decent phones as they become just another commodity.

      Apple needs to come up with something new and stunning, always very hard to keep doing that.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Scouler

        A company like Samsung may be cyclical with regard to a single product (like the GS6) but isn't very cyclical with its smartphone business as a whole because it is always releasing new products at various price points. So this news of falling share for Samsung in China is far more likely to represent a problem for them than it is Apple.

    3. P. Lee

      Re: Apple's market is cyclical

      "I don't think Vesuvius will ever blow. It never has done before, ever since anyone can remember!

      Meh, Smoke Schmoke."

      -- Julius Unredius

      Everyone seems to be waving the "China/India" wand around and muttering hocus pocus as if it will save the world. It won't. In the very best scenario imaginable, it puts off the inevitable for a few years. In all likelihood, by the time China/India become large viable markets, the commoditisation of mobile will be complete. I don't know if ARM/MIPS will be making laptops but I'm pretty sure there won't be a buzz of excitement around the release of the latest phone, any more than we have a buzz of excitement around a new Dell.

      Apple at least understand that selling devices is a short-term operation - they've gone for the ecosystem to get into your digital life and pick up your day-to-day spend. The question is, what happens when there is no ecosystem? What happens when the latest bollywood star isn't on itunes? What happens when the option is cheap android or nothing? What happens when you don't care about syncing all your devices because you're really lucky to have even one? What happens when you need large local storage because your cloud is *normally* disconnected?

      Eventually the privacy abuses of the cloud are going to seep into mainstream consciousness. Someone is going to realise that they don't want to have to choose between Apple, MS & Google owning the entire stack - they would actually like to have layered software with third-party products. They may even tumble to the realisation that IPSEC vpns aren't that hard to do back to your own router. Someone will do a home-server which does their backups and network serving without stupid $400 empty-NAS pricing.

      Its going to be an interesting time for Apple. In the 80's they were beaten because their magical Mackintosh was simply outpriced by good-enough Windows. Is history going to repeat itself? Probably not with Windows this time. I wonder how much impact the network-effect of their other products will have.

  2. Vector

    Chinese Companies taking over a Tech Market..?

    Well, gee, that's never happened before (cough, cough)

    Here's where we are: Smartphone hardware has reached the point where "flagship" phones are really nothing more than an overpriced extravagance. Apple's ecosystem will buy them some goodwill for a while until the average price of a decent mid-range phone sinks to somewhere between half to a third of the price of their current offering. Samsung and all the other major Android makers are just on the way out.

    This is precisely what happened in the PC market. IBM and all the other "Big Boys" were eventually supplanted by Taiwanese manufacturers like Acer and Asus, who destroyed their market by driving the margins down to 3-5%.

    Virtually all the current big name Tech companies are products of the PC market. A few, like Sony, managed to re-emerge after lying fallow for many years, but most, like NEC and Digital Equipment Corp, have either exited the market or exited business altogether.

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