For more analysis of Apple & the industry, join us at ACTIVE 2025.

Cracking the India Code

In my last podcast (Impatient for Growth) I mentioned my frustration at Apple’s slow entry into emerging markets outside of China. I cited Tim Cook’s comments that he did not see an opportunity there in the short term. He mentioned the multi-level distribution challenge which I took to mean the difficulty in setting up Apple stores (in itself due to restrictions on foreign owned retail chains) and the absence of device/service bundling.

This requires more analysis and the best place to start is to look at the data available.

The market potential is enormous. Globally, there are 6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions (end of 2011, ITU) and 86% penetration, but only 1 billion have mobile broadband subscriptions (which make ownership of a smartphone worthwhile).  In India there are 893 million subs (vs 986 million in China).

In 2011 142 million mobile cellular subscriptions were added in India, more than in the Arab States, CIS and Europe put together.

So the potential and growth are spectacular. But that is just 2G. Mobile broadband (i.e. 3G) is rare. Globally, developing countries have only 8% mobile broadband penetration vs. 51% in the developed world. Mobile broadband is a proxy for mass adoption of the iPhone (though perhaps not for Android inasmuch as it’s employed as a feature phone).

The situation for 3G in India is even worse than the overall developing world. Continue reading “Cracking the India Code”

5by5 | The Critical Path #47: Impatient for Growth

This episode is recorded on the day after Apple’s second quarter earnings release. We go through all the income statement updates and discuss what went wrong (almost everything) and what went right (precious little). We use statements by management about India to answer the question of where the emerging market potential is for iPhone. Putting aside some of the missed opportunities or bad timings, the quarter is reviewed as less than the stellar performance we’ve become accustomed to but not bad all things considered.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #47: Impatient for Growth.

A preview of Apple's performance in Q2

In anticipation of the earnings release tomorrow, I prepared a iPad-enabled audio-visual chart-based discussion of my expectation for product-level performance.

I discuss six topics in a historic context and the reasoning behind my expectations for the just-ended June quarter:

  1. Units by product line
  2. Unit growth
  3. Gross Margin percent (profitability) by product
  4. Pricing power in terms of revenue per unit sold
  5. Contribution to revenues for each product
  6. Contribution to margin for each product (i.e. profitability)

The discussion is packaged as a “padcast” which means you need to have an iPad and the Perspective App available on the iTunes App store in order to view the content.

It’s available for $0.99 here.

 

The Future of Apple: A panel session at Fortune Brainstorm Tech

My thanks to Adam Lashinsky of Fortune for inviting me to Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Aspen this week. I was asked to participate in a panel session with Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray to discuss “The Future of Apple”. The session was moderated by Adam.

Here is a full video of our conversation: FORA.tv – Future of Apple.

How many Lumia phones were shipped in the US?

The US is a crucial market for both Nokia and Microsoft’s strategies. This importance was highlighted during the launch at CES in January when not one but three CEOs (Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Nokia’s  Stephen Elop, and AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega) were on stage to launch the Lumia. Knowing how well this strategy is working would be very useful to understanding how this market behaves.

My first take on this was when I asked the question How many Lumia phones were sold in the US? The answer suggested through the combination of survey data from Nielsen and comScore[1] was 330,000. The figure is quite small compared to expectations. As it’s so extraordinary, it should be supported by good evidence. Unfortunately the methodology used is weak. The figure itself is probably close to the margin of error of such sampling techniques. It would be nice to have another way to calculate this.

Today Nokia offered another set of data which might help determine how many Lumia phones were shipped in the US. (Note the shipped versus sold distinction. Companies report shipments while surveys nominally measure consumption or usage.)

Unfortunately, Nokia did not offer specific data on US shipments. What they did offer was:

  • Global Lumia shipments were 4 million in the last quarter
  • Global average selling price was €186 for a Lumia phone
  • North American[2] phone shipments were 600k. This includes all phone types and all operating systems.
  • North American sales were €128 million.

That’s all we have. So how can this help with the question of US shipments?

As often happens, it helps to look at the data historically. The following charts show North American shipments and sales with the Lumia launch date highlighted.

While unit shipments were flat, revenues increased significantly. This suggests that we could plot the average selling price of phones in North America (NA) specifically. I did that in the following chart: Continue reading “How many Lumia phones were shipped in the US?”

5by5 | The Critical Path #46: The Next Victim

We cover the valuation question regarding Apple and tech in general as seen through investors’ eyes. This discussion ranges a bit on P/E compression and the psychology of investors–which might change with Apple TV.

We also look at who is most vulnerable in the ongoing mobile computing disruption and who are the up-and-coming challengers. Finally, I introduce the Perspective app which I used for all my live presentations.

I’ll post more about Perspective in the future as it will be my platform for publishing complex or rich data.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #46: The Next Victim.

From bad to worse and from good to great

A year ago I noted that Apple could buy most of the mobile phone industry with cash on hand (excluding Samsung’s operations).

Since then Apple’s cash has grown significantly and the value of all phone vendors except Samsung has gone down significantly. The following chart shows the year ago and present day estimated market value of the industry participants.

Phone brands other than Samsung and iPhone have seen a reduction in market value of a combined 47%. That’s actually being quite generous since I’m valuing Motorola and Sony’s businesses at their acquisition prices. The operations of both those companies have continued to stagnate.

Based on the same multiple of estimated earnings Samsung grew its value by Continue reading “From bad to worse and from good to great”

How many Lumia phones were sold in the US?

Nielsen and comScore survey US consumers through different methodologies, however they both try to paint a picture of the smartphone patterns of ownership and consumption.

I regularly report on comScore’s data as it’s published on a monthly basis. Nielsen offers updates on a quarterly basis but there is more detail.

The latest report (for Q2) shows smartphone shares by both platform and vendor. The following graph is a treemap built with the Nielsen data:

 

The same data is also plotted below as a pie chart: Continue reading “How many Lumia phones were sold in the US?”

Waiting for Godot

Gartner has published preliminary PC unit sales for Q2. The data from Apple’s Mac sales has not been published yet but based on some estimates, we can draw a partial picture of the personal computer market.

 

My estimate is that the Windows PC market fell by 1% while the Mac market grew by 15%. Gartner reports an overall flat market. I’ll leave out the iPad for the time being, and show the growth of the Mac vs. Windows: Continue reading “Waiting for Godot”

5by5 | The Critical Path #45: Management vs. Leadership

We start with a discussion of RIM’s latest quarterly performance and follow with a description of the inherent tension between managing and leading. To further illustrate this divergence we discuss the conflicting messages from Microsoft about the Surface.

via 5by5 | The Critical Path #45: Management vs. Leadership.

Asymco

Asymmetric Competition

Skip to content ↓