A 2 minute video introduction on how I use Perspective to create interactive presentations:
[vimeo 47865727 w=442]
5by5 | The Critical Path #51: Product Portfolio Theory
We cover three topics:
- Safety and air travel: the bases of performance that don’t get rewarded
- The unintended consequences of litigation: US v. Microsoft and lessons learned for Apple v. Samsung
- Product Portfolio theory: is focus impossible for everyone but Apple?
Asymconf: The Introduction
The first of a series of padcasts capturing the Asymconf event is ready. This presentation includes a discussion on the formation of Amsterdam and the innovations that both made, and were made by, The Dutch.
It is the story of the Netherlands as seen through a disruptive lens.
The introductory remarks are captured with audio and video mixed with data and content as presented live.
The Story of Amsterdam is free.
View it using the latest version of Perspective on your iPad.
Think small
We can put all of our products on the table you’re sitting at. Those products together sell $40 billion per year. No other company can make that claim except perhaps an oil company.
We are the most focused company that I know of, or have read of, or have any knowledge of.
We say no to good ideas every day; we say no to great ideas; to keep the number of things we focus on small in number.
Tim Cook said this in February 2010 at the Goldman Sachs technology conference.
Since then the only product that has been added to the kitchen table has been the iPad. The sales level however, has increased in proportions shown in the chart below.
The revenues are shown with their contributory products and the costs of those products. The payments for costs of sales as well as R&D, SG&A and Taxes are then subtracted revealing the Net Income (in green). This is done for the second quarters of 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Since Tim Cook made the analogy, the table holding the products has not gotten any bigger but the sales level has more than doubled while profits have nearly tripled.
In his talk he cited revenues of $40 billion (for the pervious year, 2009). In the last twelve months Apple’s revenues were $148 billion.
Tim Cook went on: Continue reading “Think small”
The Interlopers
Google, Microsoft and Apple all had reasonably good second quarters. Microsoft’s revenues grew by 4%, Google’s by about 22% and Apple by 23%. Apple’s growth was disappointing but the other companies weren’t. The revenues for the three companies are shown in the following charts:
It’s costly and has unpredictable consequences
“It’s costly and has unpredictable consequences. That makes it a very bad business model. I suppose both companies have agendas that are not visible in court and perhaps Apple is signaling to other parties, and perhaps Samsung is using it to raise its profile. It still seems that unintended consequences may arise and the result could be very bad for everybody,’’ said Horace Dediu, founder of equity-research firm Asymco, in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times.
The above was a quote from the article Samsung can’t afford to lose Apple fight by Yoo-chul Kim from The Korea Times. Yoo-chul contacted me via email with a series of questions. I want to share all his questions and my answers as well:
Samsung wides market gap with Apple, according to research firms.
You think the gap will further be widen and please tell me why
As Samsung converts its phone portfolio to be all smartphones, it is very likely to reach much higher smartphone volumes. One year ago Samsung sold about 56 million feature phones. Last quarter it sold about 43 million. The smartphone portion increased from 20 million to 50 million. At the same time, Apple has maintained a growth in its smartphone business of about 100% on a yearly basis. I expect that to continue into 2013 as well. Therefore it’s possible that Samsung could sell 290 million smartphones in the next 12 months and Apple could sell about 200 million in the same time frame.
However, it’s important to understand that the companies compete on different bases. What I mean is that what generates a profit (i.e. payment by the consumer above what a product costs) is different for each company. Apple is a platform company that sells access to the iOS ecosystem across many other device types. Samsung sells consumer electronics with limited “network effects” but desirable features. In this view, the gap in device sales is “asymmetric” and not reflective of the actual competition which is between Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS as forms of access. Continue reading “It’s costly and has unpredictable consequences”
International Tablet of Mystery
One of the remarkable patterns associated with the iPad has been its growth rate. Looking at the ramp of the product relative to the iPhone and iPod touch reflects this sense of raised expectations:
Are Apple stores overstaffed?
ifoAppleStore’s Gary Allen alleges that John Browett, head of Apple Retail, felt the stores were “too bloated”. He cites “numerous tipsters” that Browett ordered a reduction in the number of employees. As the information on employees and visitors is public, we can quickly test the assumption.
The following graph shows the relationship between Retail employees and Visitors on a global basis.
The total figure for the last quarter was 41,000 employees for 83 million visitors. This is above the expected ratio as shown by the line shown in the graph. Reversion to that line would imply that about 35,000 employees should have sufficed during that quarter.
However, Apple’s business is cyclical and employment is not–or at least not on the same frequency of cycle. Continue reading “Are Apple stores overstaffed?”
5by5 | The Critical Path #50: From Impossible to Inevitable
The crumbs of data falling off the Samsung v. Apple trial table get some scrutiny. Horace expands on some of the hints from the partial release of information and then continues with a discussion of how market data is collected and whether it should be trusted. That leads to a question of whether private (or paid) analysis is “better” than public (and unpaid). The benefits of having access to the vastness of collaborators online and the public sources of info might be tipping the balance. Finally, we talk about how big ideas go from sounding impossible to being inevitable and who gets rewarded for making them so.
via 5by5 | The Critical Path #50: From Impossible to Inevitable.
American exceptionalism
The second quarter showed continuing growth for Android with 19 points of share growth from a year ago. Only Windows Phone showed a gain y/y in share up 1.6 points to about 3%. In the same time, Bada lost half a point, iOS lost 2.1 points, RIM lost 7.2, Symbian 11.4.
The result is shown in the graph below:
I also show a “before-and-after” pair of pie charts which show the difference in smartphone platform market share from the same quarter three years ago. Android went from 3% share to 67% while Symbian went from 41% to 4% and RIM went from 19% to 5%. iOS increased its share from 13% to 17%. Continue reading “American exceptionalism”