Category: Industry

Samsung Electronics warned Tuesday that its third-quarter earnings would fall below market expectations. It did not cite a decrease in shipments but an increase in marketing expenses coupled with an unfavorable mix (i.e. more low-end units and fewer high-end units).

The headlines reporting the news emphasized the 60% forecast drop in operating income but the company also provided sales figures. Adjusting for exchange rates, the forecast revenues are shown in the following diagram:

Note that I also included Apple’s revenue history and forecast. Samsung’s revenues are shown on the right and Apple’s on the left using the same scale (each horizontal gridline represents $10 billion/quarter.

The explicit cause for the drop is a decline in prices and “increased competition”.1 However a few more questions need to be answered regarding long-term success in the markets Samsung competes in.

Namely:

• The absence of a software platform fully within its control
• The absence of control over an ecosystem of content and apps
• The absence of services
• The lack of integration of software, services and hardware
• The absence of differentiation vis-a-vis other vendors
• The indefensibility of its low end offerings from low end disruptors
• The pattern of commoditization in all its markets

Samsung is a very big company but many very big companies came to become small companies. They all followed similar roads.

1. Though one can’t be sure when there was ever decreased competition in its markets. [↩]

My thanks to Eric Jackson for his thought-out questions on Apple. As published in Forbes, here is his Interview With Horace Dediu: What To Expect When Apples Expecting.

A few excerpts:

Q: Do you expect to see a sapphire cover on the new iPhone(s)? Is that material significant?

I expect Sapphire will become a signature feature across many products. I don’t know if they will have capacity to deploy on iPhone this year but on a watch it’s essential. Here’s a clue: if the screen has any curvature, especially around edges, it needs to be sapphire as glass can’t take strain in that shape. The scope of the plant they are building with GT implies that they will have massive volume potential with at least one major iPhone model using the material. It’s a significant material because it allows design freedom in new directions, especially curved (concave) touch surfaces that retain a jewel-like feel. This has Jony Ive all over it.

Q: Is it fair to conclude now based on the 5C and 5S that Apple will never launch a “cheap iPhone”?

Oscar Wilde said a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. When I see the word “cheap” I never know if it refers to price or value. And even when we talk about price, an iPhone is cheaper than buying all the things it replaces so it’s always been a low end disruptor in my mind. (I saw a tweet with an image of a Radio Shack ad from the 1980s and every single item available on that page is now a part of the iPhone. It would have cost thousands to buy all those things back then–and dollars were worth a lot more.) Furthermore, I think Apple holds a black belt in pricing. They seem to define their position in the market by anchoring certain prices and “owning” them. Given all that I would say that Apple is not going to move their price points much. They will expand the portfolio and offer some iPhones at $300 but they will be older models. The average selling price (ASP) I expect to remain constant on a year-long average.

Q: In the past, Apple critics were quick to dismiss the new iPad and 5C iPhone as failures upon their introduction.  You never judge. You just report the facts and data.  That said, is there anything about past new Apple products launches that we should look at as a predictor of how a new iWatch might be received by customers?

When the iPad was imminent the great debate was over whether it would run iOS or OS X. Many imagined a touch-based Mac rather than the “big screen iPod touch”. It was a tough call and one which Microsoft could not and still does not make. Therefore, the interesting question for me with respect to iWatch is: What OS it will run? I will be shocked to the core if it does not run iOS. It is my opinion that making iOS work on it is the entire reason Apple is sweating this segment. They are in it because they are trying to make a platform product with a novel user experience and all the power of an ecosystem run on a wrist. It’s as big a problem as getting a phone-sized device to run a touch UI was in 2007. That is the crucial contribution that Apple is making to this next generation of computing. Now you might ask what users are asking for in this segment. The answer is nothing. Nobody is asking for this. As nobody asked for the iPhone (or the Mac or the iPad). It’s a new computer form factor and how it will be used will be determined by the apps written for it. But it will work and be magical out of the box in version 1. This is in contrast to the single purpose or accessory model of wearables we see to date.

Q: As a student of disruption, where is Apple most vulnerable to being disrupted?

Apple is a new market disruptor but much of what is put forward as a threat to it is low-end disruption. I think Apple knows enough about how that happens that it can manage its way around it. The strategy they employ is one of attrition. If you wait long enough a low-end threat tends to wear itself out as it starves of profit and is constantly gnawed-at by alternatives. (You see, if the disruptor cannot manage a profit then they cannot climb up the trajectory to get on top of the incumbent. Being profitable is a key requirement for successful disruption in the long term.) The attrition strategy works as long as you have the fortitude to hold out and the deep pockets to keep improving your product as alternatives flame out. It is my belief that Jobs made sure that thinking is inculcated in the company. So if not low-end is the company vulnerable to new-market disruptors? This is more subtle and the threat here is what Google/FaceBook/Amazon and the other ecosystems are all about. It’s creating new usage models and shifting where consumers place brand value. I think this is more what keeps Apple’s management awake at night. They are not standing still however. iTunes and Software and Services (now with Beats on board) is the way they are staying on top of that threat.

Lots more here.

ABI Research estimates that AOSP (or forked Android) is the fastest growing mobile operating system with a total share of units shipped of about 20%. This is not surprising considering that most Chinese vendors don’t include standard Android into their products. Indeed the current leader in China, Xiaomi has its own take on Android and includes a unique UI and set of services. This is also not a new pattern, Amazon’s fork of Android has been in development for many years and powers the second most used tablet in the US.

If one looks at the volumes of smartphones shipped by vendor, the most rapidly growing (Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, ZTE, Coolpad and “others”) are likely to be using forked versions of Android.

The reasons for this are many: a reluctance to deal with Google’s obligations,  Microsoft’s IP licensing costs1 , potential litigation, politics (including bans on Google services in certain markets), etc. But the most likely reason is flexibility. Vendors competing on price and localization are looking to move quickly against each other and can’t wait for blessings from above. Belonging to some “Alliance” and all that it entails is just too much to ask for companies that are, so to say, delicate.

Continue reading “Open always wins”

1. which even Samsung seems to be eschewing [↩]

The Re/Code conference begins this week, and Apple executives Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will be answering questions from Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Here are some questions I hope they ask:

For Eddy Cue:

1. Why is there no app store for Apple TV? Even though the product is running essentially the same hardware and software as the iPhone and iPad and iPod touch and even though it connects to the iTunes stores, there is no option for developers to build apps for it or for consumers to use their TVs to run iOS apps. I might add that it’s been seven years since the platform launched and that’s a long time to wait.
2. As Amazon has been granted a monopoly on the distribution of ebooks by the US federal government, why not compete by selling ebooks as apps? Apps were used as ebook containers well before the iBookstore launched and there were tens of thousands of “book apps”. Why not encourage authors and publishers to build apps by offering tools which make it easy to do so? I might add that if you do this for authors, why not do it for musicians and video producers? Why have separate stores for different media when they are all just content?
3. YouTube is becoming the TV of choice for millions. Before it becomes that choice for billions, what are you doing to encourage user-generated video content distribution through your ecosystem?
4. Apple’s Services revenues are growing remarkably quickly. The number of users is over 800 million. Do you see an opportunity for services to become a more independent business at Apple? In other words, why not bring iTunes to Android?

For Craig Federighi:

1. Marc Andreessen uses the phrase “Software is Eating the World” to describe the disruption that software-enabled businesses are having on those who don’t depend on software. You are the head of software at Apple; what’s on your plate? In other words, what do you see the opportunity for software at Apple beyond enabling device sales? I might add that although you are leading Software Engineering at Apple, Software and Services are part of Eddy’s organization. Does this separation make sense?
2. It’s likely that iOS will be used by more people than Windows in the near future. What do you see as the obstacles to iOS replacing Windows for what most business users use daily?
3. If you believe that iOS can replace Windows (at least in some tasks), do you think the iPad will ever replace the Mac?

This was originally posted on LinkedIn on May 28th.

Three years ago Apple’s Greater China Q1 sales were $2.22 billion or 9% of total. This year they were $9.29 billion1 or 20% of total. Over this time frame the growth in China was about 320%. The second fastest growing reporting segment was Japan with growth of 187%. Europe was third with 70% and Americas fourth with 53.5%. Rest of Asia/Pacific had the smallest increase of only 4.1%.

A graph showing both the absolute and relative sales levels for the reporting regions is shown below.

As overall sales have increased significantly, the revenues from the Americas and Retail combined (as most stores are in the US)2 went from 51% in Q1 2011 to  42% in Q1 2014. The 11 point increase in share for China can be thus seen as mostly at the expense of the US. As Americas did not decline more appropriate statement would be that China captured much of the growth of the last three years.

Note that I also included Google’s revenue split3 in the graph above. This is partly to calibrate Apple’s mix and to understand if the expansion outside the US is mirrored by other companies.

Google, in particular, is largely absent from the Chinese market and the only regional detail we have for their revenues is the US, UK and Other. That leaves an analysis of the dependency of each company on the US market.

Google’s US revenue percentage did drop from 47% to 43% but it’s worth noting that not only is the drop slower than Apple’s, the overall dependency of Google on the US for revenues is higher than Apple’s.

A surprising observation as Apple’s concentration of users, measured as market share for various products, is likely to be higher in the US than Google’s distribution of users.

Put another way, Google is broadly popular world-wide (except for search in China, Korea and Russia) but its customers and hence profitability are highly concentrated.

1. Including China retail, revenues reached “almost $10 billion” [↩]
2. 60% of all Apple stores are in the US [↩]
3. Excludes discontinued operations, namely Motorola [↩]