The latest comScore data shows consistent growth in US smartphone penetration. The rate is now 58.4% of adult consumers who own phones. This is up from 20% only three years ago. The rate of growth remains a remarkable 1.2% per month. That’s 700,000 new-to-smartphone users every week. The historic average over 3 years has been … Continue reading “Measuring Platform Churn”
iTunes (including software and services) revenues in Q1 topped $4 billion and were 30% higher than (re-stated) 2012 Q1 revenues. Accompanying this revenue figure were additional data points from the company: Cumulative app downloads have surpassed 45 billion Payments to developers reached a cumulative total of $9 billion Payments to developers were $4.5 billion in … Continue reading “Happy Birthday iTunes Store”
I repeat what I’ve mentioned before: The iPhone is primarily hired as a premium network service salesman. It receives a “commission” for selling a premium service in the form of a premium price. Because it’s so good at it, the premium is quite high. The job the iPhone is hired to do The original post … Continue reading “The job the iPhone is hired to do, part II”
To anyone who has visited the current “campus”, it’s obvious that Apple has outgrown it some time ago. It’s also obvious given the increase in headcount and operational expenses over time as can be seen below: (I added Q1 2013 estimate based on company guidance.) One can understand why, from a practical point of … Continue reading “Spaceship”
On Mar 18, 2013, Rafael Barbosa Barifouse – Redacao Epoca – Editora Globo asked (and I answered): Q: Why is Samsung creating Tizen? A: I believe they are collaborating on Tizen development because they want an alternative to Android and because Bada was not good enough to meet that goal. Tizen’s roots include contributions from … Continue reading “Samsung vs. Google: an Interview with Rafael Barbosa Barifouse of Redacao Epoca”
The following is another excerpt from a report titled “iTunes Business Review” which will soon be available for purchase through the Asymco Store. If you are interested in the product please get in touch. — iTunes store will be 10 years old next month. From its inception Apple has stated that it aims to run … Continue reading “So long, break-even”
LG Electronics has acquired HP’s WebOS for an undisclosed amount. When last it changed hands WebOS was part of Palm which was purchased for $1.2 billion in 2010. Palm has thus been effectively divided into several smaller pieces distributed as follows: HP will own: Support of existing Palm users Palm back-end assets including source code, … Continue reading “LG's new Tele-vision”
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported that global digital revenues were $5.6 billion in 2012. This represented about 9% growth from 2011 and accounted for 34% of total industry revenues[1]. Apple regularly reports iTunes as a separate revenue item and occasionally it also reports payments data for developers and app download rates. By … Continue reading “The iTunes Value Structure”
I last looked at the race to a billion in March 2011. Since then, I’ve been updating and adding data to the set giving a broader selection of platforms to compare. Before we dive in, an explanation: the initial review excluded Windows (PC) and Facebook mainly because (a) the ramp scale I’m using is about … Continue reading “The race to a billion—2012 Update”
In 2011 Microsoft’s CEO bemoaned that revenue in China was about 5% of what it obtained in the US. Yesterday Apple’s CEO suggested that revenue from China will overtake the US in the near future. The contrast is even more stark when one considers the time and effort each company has made in China. Microsoft has … Continue reading “Cracking the China code: Microsoft vs. Apple”
