IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark reported US Black Friday sales and the news is reasonably good. Overall online sales grew by 17.4% while mobile grew to make up 24% of traffic. The data goes further to show the split between device types. I illustrate this split with the following graphs: Of the 24% of traffic made … Continue reading “The Android engagement paradox”
The iPhone is a severely constrained product. We’re used to thinking that it’s production constrained—and it is, but it’s also distribution constrained. It has a business model that is almost completely dependent on operator subsidy. Few end users pay the $650 average price that Apple obtains and that price point has held for a remarkably … Continue reading “The iPhone Addressable Market”
Apple’s Retail head was recently replaced. The hire seems to have been a mistake dealt with quite swiftly. It is tempting to think that the firing of a manager is due to a failure in their performance, measurable in quarterly reported metrics. But this is not often the case. It may be true of sales … Continue reading “Minding the store”
The latest yearly report from Apple includes, as it has in the past, the forecast of Capital Expenditures. I’ve been tracking this data as an indicator of both strategic intent and potential forecasting tool for iOS device production. Before exploring Apple’s own forecast, we should look at how they met expectations for fiscal 2012. In … Continue reading “ReCapEx: The curious case of Apple's 2012 and 2013 Capital Expenditures”
Here is an exchange with Robert van Apeldoorn, Journalist with Trends Tendances Magazine in Belgium. (www.trends.be/fr). The exchange took place in early September via e-mail. Robert: -Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is considered in Europe as a way to push growth, and is a target of national and EU policies (digital growth,etc), but the result seems … Continue reading “The policymaker's dilemma”
comScore reports that US smartphone penetration has decisively crossed over 50% in August. This should not come as a surprise as the penetration rate has been very linear. Now that we’ve crossed this milestone, the thing to watch is the conversion rate from smartphone non-consumption to smartphone consumption. The reason is that we don’t know … Continue reading “The late smartphone adopter paradox”
The following article is published in Filmmaker Magazine. Fall 2012, Vol. 21 #1. There is a saying I once heard: “Once you change the method of distribution, the product has to change.” This itself is a take on the idea that distribution defines the product. You see this around you every day in the products … Continue reading “The App Revolution (in Filmmaking)”
In previous posts I described the patterns of asset value growth for Property Plant and Equipment at Apple and how that change has been thus far correlated to the production of iOS devices. The analysis was based on looking at the declared value of the PP&E assets on Apple’s balance sheet. These values include depreciation … Continue reading “Hey Big Spender”
In the parlance of developers Apple keeps “throwing exceptions.” This quarter the iPad surprised with a significant decline in sales growth. I placed a table showing the sales growth for this quarter as well as the previous 22 quarters at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick review of each line: The iPhone … Continue reading “Apple's Growth Scorecard for third quarter 2012”
It takes money to make money. That’s a cliché. But it’s also true. The interesting question is how much can be gained from how little. In previous articles I explained how Apple’s expenditures of capital for equipment used in manufacturing affects their output of products. The relationship between capital in and product out should stand to … Continue reading “Using Capital Expenditures to predict Apple’s share price”
