Apple big in smart-phones or big in phones?
Posted by melting on Apr 26, 2009
Ever since Apple wowed the world with it’s iPhone and follow on iPhone 3G everyone was wondering what market share would be stolen from Microsoft Windows Mobile and Symbian OS’s as well as RIM, Nokia, HTC, Samsung, and others. As many have pointed out over the last year and half the iPhone is a growth engine for Apple. It is gobbling market share for the smartphone market left and right.
In Q4 of 2008 calendar year Apple grabbed 10.7% of marketshare of the worldwide smart-phone industry. This is some feat for a company that wasn’t in the cell phone industry, which some thought to be a crowded market, two years ago.
Despite all of this growth it still only has 1.5% of global cell phone market. It doesn’t seem to be Apple’s mojo to cut capabilities in products and sell them at low end prices.
Two trends that do start to make some sense when I try to come up with my own strategy if I were in El Jobso’s Tim Cook’s shoes are netbooks and predicted smartphone growth of 6% for 2009.
First 6% growth for smart-phones in 2009 seems like a small number, but in context this is huge. Most industries this year are at best predicted to stay the same or contract so this market is going to continue to head up. So why would Apple want to look down to the basic handset market that is likely to become even more heavily commoditized?
Second huge opportunity is netbooks. While I think this is a dirty word for Apple it points to some pretty cool opportunities. First netbooks are typically rather slow and operate in a diminished capacity. If you spin this and retool the name to something like iTablet or iPod Touch HD then you may get somthing interesting.
So if you put these two trends together you may start to get to a strategy that we can see in June. Perhaps a new type of device that can get its mobility from the iPod world and its power from the Mac lineup then we can see something that can truly bridge the gap. The other thing this does nicely is allow the current iPhone 3G be sold at lower pricepoints, perhaps even $99, which would drive this market share even higher.
Since I am quickly becoming an “Apple Fanboy,” I certainly hope so.
