Apple Takes 104 Percent of All Smartphone Profits Following Galaxy Note 7 Recall (macrumors.com) 171
Apple accounted for over 100 percent of smartphone industry profits in the third quarter of this year, according to estimates published by BMO Capital Markets on Thursday. From a report on MacRumors: Analyst Tim Long, quoted in the Investor's Business Daily, said Apple's staggering 103.6 percent profit share in Q3 2016 came largely as a result of significant losses posted by rival vendors including LG and HTC, and despite Apple continuing to shift fewer handsets year on year. Based on units alone, Samsung accounted for 21.7 percent of all smartphones sold, with Apple coming in second with a 13.2 percent share. In terms of profits however, Samsung came a distant second to Apple, capturing only a 0.9 percent share.
150% Sure (Score:3, Informative)
I am 150% sure that they can't have more than 100% of the profit share. Thank you to math teachers everywhere for at least trying, but some can not be reached!
Re:150% Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The larger than 100% number is because most firms operate at a loss. For example, one can easily be 200% more productive than a very lazy coworker.
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the only profitable firm is Apple.
Is OnePlus making a profit?
They are 4 phones in now... you'd think that they would be turning a profit by now.... right?
Maybe not..
How about Huawei and Xiaomi?
Apple cannot be the only handset making who makes a profit... who would want to jump into that kind of environment? Yet there are so many handset manufacturers.... why would that be if only Apple makes a profit.
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First, many of these companies operate beyond the smartphone market, so they may not be losing money overall.
Ok, I am with you. Many handset makers also make other stuff.
Second, no profit does not mean no revenue. So these companies may be healthy overall or even quite profitable despite their unprofitable smartphone divisions.
That may work for a while. I mean, you can operate in the red for a long time if other parts of the business compensate... but not forever. And by forever, it seems like 2 - 3 years of running losses seem to be enough for investors to start calling for blood
Why bother? Presumably, they are hoping to improve their profitability in a market that is assumed to continue to grow. Or perhaps they are simply trying to expand brand recognition to aid their other, profitable endeavors.
I get it. If you can get your device in someone's hands, they are sort of a captive audience. Once established with enough of a footprint, you can then start monetizing those eyeballs. Still..
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So, when can I buy my Apple washing machine? I REALLY need it. Gotta love these stupid stories.
Mmmmm.
The AppleWash(tm) is quite simply the most elegant and powerful washer we have ever designed.
When we set out to create the AppleWash(tm), we asked ourselves "How can we make something as simple as the Washing Machine better?" And I think you will agree that we have done it.
Milled from a solid block of aircraft al-u-MIN-ium, and polished nine times in a proprietary process to a mirror finish, the AppleWash(tm) blends in perfectly with any decor.
Rather than the noisy electromechanical valves tha
Sorry Fake Tim Cook, you are not fake enough. Ha! (Score:2)
Also, you can't be such a good writer.
Instead of being a Fake Tim Cook, you could accept the lower position of being a Madison Avenue advertising copywriter. Only $1200 per hour.
Tim Cook is not a good communicator. (Score:2)
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Technically those stories are extremely stupid if Apple is putting them out because basically they are mocking their customers. Those profits do not come from the air, they do not come from other companies and they do not come from non-Apple customers, those profits all come from the pockets of Apple customers, they more they pay for the less they get, the more profit Apple makes. If a customer does not make a effort to cut back the profits of their suppliers, than that customer is a fool. Paying more for s
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1) People don't buy on the basis of profit margin for the manufacturer. They buy on whether the product is worth the price to them.
2) You definately don't want to buy from a company that is making a loss. Because they'll either drop the product soon or go bankrupt. So there's no likelihood of long term support.
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Well, profits are revenue - expenses. So, if you add up all the revenues and subtract all the expenses for all the companies, the profit of the industry is less than what Apple made from it.
Calling it "more than 100%" illustrates that point quite well.
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Your maths is wrong, even if you use upper case to emphasise your belief.
They aren't adding other companies negative profits to the share. They are adding all companies profits (positive and negative) to the size of the market.
If Apple are making more profits than the whole of the industry added together, then they do indeed have >100% of the profits. The maths doesn't change just because you don't like percentages larger than 100.
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This is actually incorrect. If you go to the original IBD article, rather than reading the shitty blog post that links to it, you'll see this is what the original source ACTUALLY says:
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In previous years Apple and Samsung accounted for the majority of profits in the smartphone category. Now that Samsung has sunk itself, not only with exploding mobile devices but also exploding washing machines, the only profitable firm is Apple.
The larger than 100% number is because most firms operate at a loss. For example, one can easily be 200% more productive than a very lazy coworker.
But how can you ever account for having over 100% of the total productivity? They said total profits. Which means that Apple made more profit than there was profit available. That's what the sentence literally means. That is impossible. It's like giving 110% effort. You cannot give more effort than all of the effort you possess.
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Which means that Apple made more profit than there was profit available.
That's your misunderstanding. There isn't an available profit, from which each company can take. It's not a pie.
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Which means that Apple made more profit than there was profit available.
That's your misunderstanding. There isn't an available profit, from which each company can take. It's not a pie.
Total profits is a pie. It's a fixed number. it's in the past, it's already said and done. Just like productivity. It already happened. You can't have more of something that is already measured than was measured. It's impossible. When you compare it to previous measurements then you can say "We had 200% growth" and it makes sense. You could also spend 105% of your budget - those are all things that are possible to exceed 100% on. This is a finite measurement.
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Nope. You've certainly got the wrong end of the stick. The total industry profits are calculated by adding up each individual company profits. Individual company profits are not taken FROM the industry total. There is no limit on what each company can make in profit. The sky is the limit.
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This argument makes as much sense as "You can't hold sqrt(-1) pieces of chalk; therefore imaginary numbers can't exist."
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By definition, no square root of a negative number exists. (And fuck your negative 0 bullshit. If you want to talk about negative 0 bullshit squaring it gives you positive zero bullshit, which is not equal to your negative 0 bullshit without a whole other layer of bullshit on top.)
Imaginary numbers are a computational aid. They do not represent any actual value or any actual physical thing, though they are useful intermediaries for determining actual values or physical things.
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By your logic 0 does not exists since it is a computational aid. 0 does not represent any actual value of any physical thing. And yet 0 was one of the greatest inventions in the mathematics.
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Actually they most certainly do represent physical things. For example the equations for potential energy of a particle.
That being said finance is only semi physical and negative numbers do exist.
Re:150% Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they can. If they make $2bn but all their competitors collectively lose $1bn, then the profits for the entire industry are $1bn and Apple have taken 200% of the industry's profits.
Re:150% Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
So if their competitors lost $3bn, they have taken -200% of the industry's profits?
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Yeah. That's how math works. -200% of negative profit is a good thing.
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Sort of you have a math error it should be -50% and that number actually makes sense.
In your scenario: industry profits = $1b - $3b = $-2b.
Apple profit $1b = -50% of $-2b.
or flipping the negative
industry losses = $2b.
Apple's loss = $-1b = -50% of $2b.
A negative profit is a loss and visa versa.
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Math is hard, let's go shopping!
Re:150% Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that Apple's money doesn't then go to anyone else to offset their losses. Economically speaking, these are independent events.
Apple made all the money. But Samsung didn't lose Apple's money. So counting their losses against Apple's profits is harebrained.
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It's 50% warmer today in Australia than it is in Britain. These are independent facts. But the comparison is still interesting.
(Made up fact.)
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Math is first victim of clickbaiting (Score:2, Funny)
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Would it make sense if there were losers and winners such that Apple had 99% of the profits of the industry?
Consolidation (Score:2)
This scenario isn't really a new thing, for several years now Apple and Samsung have taken all the profits and yes been over 100% combined. Very few companies have been profitable with Android phones.
What I can't understand is why there hasn't yet been a massive consolidation of Android phone makers or a large number of them giving up on it.
How can the same companies pump millions in year after year and stay at it?
I know Microsoft used to pay companies to make their phones, is Google doing something similar
Re:Consolidation (Score:5, Interesting)
How are they doing this so long without profit?
In the case of Samsung, they are in a position where they make a number of components for the iPhone. So when Apple wins, Samsung gets paid. When Apple looses, Samsung gets paid.
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Phone explodes. Samsung loses.
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This is my exact question as well.
I feel like there is something fundamental that I am missing here.
I mean, love them or hate them, Apple has raised the bar on phones. There is a fairly high expectation for phones to be well designed, fast, light and feature rich.
It is not an easy thing to do. Yet here we are with dozens of manufacturers in the game, each with their own offering.
Are none of them making a profit on their phone divisions? This seems to be what I keep hearing but it just seems unreasonable to
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How can the same companies pump millions in year after year and stay at it?
Diversification mostly. Are there any Smartphone vendors that have done this which haven't been in some other business, or even some entirely different industry?
The Xbox also made a loss for many years, made possible by a waterfall of cash from other divisions.
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That's a very good question, isn't it? They must be making money in some way other than selling phones. Some way that makes it worth their while to sell phones at a loss.
Corporate Strategy (Score:2)
Thank goodness Samsung isn't a US corporation, otherwise my tax money would be bailing them out.
Yes, I'm held captive by my non-exploding phone. (Score:2)
There's no additional study necessary. Apple customers are willing to spend what Apple is charging, and there's not enough serious competition to force Apple to lower the prices. That's how free markets work.
Just because Apple customers place a higher value on some features than you do doesn't mean they are suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
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are held captive in an ecosystem
I don't think that "held captive in" is the correct term here.
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Or, maybe they are happy with what they have, and don't care about the additional stuff Android offers.
Oh, you mean like Viruses, Malware and Exploits, oh my!?!?
What needs to be done. (Score:2)
Lets drag whoever produced those numbers out into the parking lot and have them shot.
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I concur 105.5% ...
I bought my first smartphone. (Score:2)
Just got (Score:2)
oh dear (Score:2)
When the reality distortion field starts affecting basic mathematics, you know you're in real trouble.
Invention (Score:4, Informative)
Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.
Slashdot accounts for 300% of nonsensical media st (Score:2)
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I just read the story on Fortune and still can't understand how a share in profits can exceed 100%. Any financial wizards care to explain for us mortals? Hopefully in terms that indicate you are cognizant of how misleading and utterly stupid it is from the perspective of a logical user of the English language.
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Simple -
Total profit made by all smartphone companies combined: $100
Profit made by Apple: $103.60
Profit made by Samsung: $0.90
Profit made by LG: -$1.00*
Profit made by HTC: -$3.50*
* Actual numbers made up on the spot.
Re: Utter bollocks (Score:2, Informative)
Profits and losses are the same type of thing with financials. Its all reported on the P and L.
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A negative profit is still a profit. [youtube.com]
Re: Utter bollocks (Score:4, Informative)
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most smartphone manufacturers barely break even or operate at a loss. add the losses to apple's share of the profits and you get over 100%
until a little while ago only apple and samsung took home something like 95% or 99% of all profits. samsung's loss pushes apple over 100% in profits
all those cheap android phones sold all over the world that make up for 85% of all phones sold don't really make any money
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most smartphone manufacturers barely break even or operate at a loss. add the losses to apple's share of the profits and you get over 100%
until a little while ago only apple and samsung took home something like 95% or 99% of all profits. samsung's loss pushes apple over 100% in profits
all those cheap android phones sold all over the world that make up for 85% of all phones sold don't really make any money
I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.
Re:Utter bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it goes to show that a lot of companies are operating on razor thin margins or lose money pursuing this business in an attempt to gain customers.
Here's a business tip: if you lose money on every phone sold, you can't make it up in volume.
It's not sustainable. Everyone wants a cheap phone, but you know why so many Android phones never get updates? Because it costs too much. The company has already lost money selling you the phone--you think they're going to support it, too?
Apple, and to a lesser extent Samsung, have the money from the profits to drive the parts of the business that don't seem like they're part of the sale price. You get support at Apple stores, for instance. R&D--whether you think Apple's priorities are good or not is irrelevant, they spend that money on R&D for materials, software, etc. All that is factored into the cost of the iPhone (in addition to the profit margin).
World-wide, Apple accounts for something like 13% of sales, Android accounts for nearly 100% of the rest. But that 87% is split among a lot of manufacturers fighting for the same slice of pie, and Samsung is the top of the heap there, being basically the only one that consistently makes a profit on its phone division.
With the kind of losing strategy that is being pursued by most manufacturers, Apple could make a lot less profit per phone and STILL walk away with nearly 100% of the profits this year.
Re:Utter bollocks (Score:4, Funny)
If you believe that, you will never get an MBA!
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Here's a business tip: if you lose money on every phone sold, you can't make it up in volume.
Well yeah, with cell phones. But when it's taxi rides (Uber) or IRC channels (Slack) or mass-blasted texts (Twitter) you can eventually make profit even when you lose money on each transaction. At least that's what the gurus in Silly Con Valley insist!
Re: Utter bollocks (Score:3)
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No, it goes to show that a lot of companies are operating on razor thin margins or lose money pursuing this business in an attempt to gain customers.
That doesn't contradict what the OP said. Apple can get away with high margins because people (even many supposed geeks) will continuously bleat about their supposedly high quality software (not even mentioning the software UX), even when it is clearly inferior to the other offerings in the same price range. The iPhone 1 is a classic example of this... a very shitty phone that did a couple of interesting (by no means unique, innovative or superlative) things, wasn't even 3G but still required an expensive
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Apple can get away with high margins because people (even many supposed geeks) will continuously bleat about their supposedly high quality software
beat about their supposedly high-quality hardware*
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Someone was certainly bleating. You.
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iPhone 1 (Score:2)
In 2007 Apple released the first phone with:
a) capacitive touchscreen as the primary or sole means of input
b) animation based interaction
c) high speed web rendering
There was no other product with that triple. That triple is now the standard. Obviously since they were the only one that was unique and since it has become more or less the standard it was quite innovative.
I think you should watch the introductory video to get an idea of how much Job's ideas contrasted with the competition at the time: htt [youtube.com]
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high speed web rendering
Rather worthless without 3G, which plenty of phones in that price range had (the iPhone was EDGE-only, although it did require a data plan.)
animation based interaction
Which was laggy as hell (for the G1 and most other earlier devices as well
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Your claim was that they didn't do anything innovative. The question is not how well they implemented the triple (though I dispute with you that at the time they didn't have a very good implementation of all 3) but rather that they presented this triple. They saw the potential of using these things together to build a new UI. Nokia has slipped with Maemo and was focusing on the MeeGo project which would still take years. MeeGo potentially could have been like that but too many factions wanted Symbian co
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So no at the time it also was not ahead and wouldn't be even similar for almost 2 years.
Uh no, that was only one year later. And by "similar", you mean "much, much better as it actually had 3G, an open app store, functioning MMS, and a decent keyboard."
You really think that year is so important? Fine; I could go back in time to 2006 and talk about what was available then if you want. Well before the iPhone came out, I had an Sharp Zaurus that was pretty amazing and could be easily modded to run Angstrom / OpenZaurus linux. Cost me just $300ish with no contract required. It wasn't a ph
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OK now we have established they were first with that crucial triple. I think you are still wrong on both months and "crappier". But I wanted to argue the dates first.
1) Everyone uses glass. Presumably if plastic were better and e
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1) Everyone uses glass. Presumably if plastic were better and easy to manufacture (in 2007) we'd be seeing phones with it now.
For many years I had (and then my girlfriend had, who has managed to shatter literally every other phone she's owned, before or since) a capacitive phone that used plastic. It was almost perfect, *except* for the friction from swiping (and the fact that you needed a screen protector if you wanted protection from scratches, which has a similarly undesirable effect on finger friction.) I'm positive they could address this friction if they really put their minds to it, but I'm also sure industry leaders real
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And many idiots, such as yourself, will pretend the iPhone doesn;t shit all over Android when it comes to usability, features, and stability.
The G1, N800 and many, many other contemporary higher end smartphones completely destroyed the iPhone 1. There's no contest whatsoever there. That was my main thesis there.
Look, we get it. Your nerd dick is big. Go to your bedroom and jack off to RMS like a good little sheep.
Or maybe I just understand that "Android" isn't a singular phone? Nor "iPhone" for that matter. Jesus fucking Christ. Claiming that one destroys the other across the board in those three areas instantly disqualifies you from intelligent conversation, 'geeky' or otherwise.
Re:Utter bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.
Apple does what any business would like to do: Sell a product to maximize profits. If they thought they could get more profit by selling iPhones for $1,000 apiece, they would. They're selling a premium item, not a necessity. There's plenty of cheap phones out there if you don't want to pay a premium.
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I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.
Apple does what any business would like to do: Sell a product to maximize profits. If they thought they could get more profit by selling iPhones for $1,000 apiece, they would. They're selling a premium item, not a necessity. There's plenty of cheap phones out there if you don't want to pay a premium.
And considering the fact that the Galaxy Note 7 costs MORE than a similar-memory-size iPhone 7 PLUS, it tells you a few things:
1. Apple and Samsung are competitively-priced
2. Since Samsung actually MANUFACTURES some of the most costly components in the product THEMSELVES (Display, SoC, Memory, Final Assembly(?)), and yet STILL charges MORE than Apple, either Apple isn't so "greedy" afterall; or Samsung is MORE GREEDY THAN APPLE (and yet, for some reason, no "Samsung Haters").
3. Maybe the gross profits
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most smartphone manufacturers barely break even or operate at a loss. add the losses to apple's share of the profits and you get over 100%
until a little while ago only apple and samsung took home something like 95% or 99% of all profits. samsung's loss pushes apple over 100% in profits
all those cheap android phones sold all over the world that make up for 85% of all phones sold don't really make any money
I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.
In other words, when they added up all of the P&L from all of the phone manufacturers Apple's share was 104% of the industry total.
For example, Samsung makes $1 in profits, Company Y has a loss of $5, and Apple makes $104. The industry total would be $100.
- Apple would have made 104% of the overall industry P&L.
- Samsung would have made 1% of the overall industry P&L.
- Company Y would have made -5% of the overall industry P&L.
It's a way to trend which company in a sector is making most of t
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I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.
You may want to rethink those percentages [slashdot.org].
Also, selling a high-priced item at a profit does not mean you're price gouging. Most of their competition has adopted a business plan that involves operating at a loss [wikipedia.org] in an effort to gain market share that will provide a foundation for future profits, but which has so far resulted in several of them putting themselves out of business. Apple has opted to sell their products at a profit. Samsung does the same, which was why earlier reports stated that Samsung + App
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Also, selling a high-priced item at a profit does not mean you're price gouging.
It does on Communist Slashdot!
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I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%.
You think wrong. Latest is 87.5%.
Personally, most to the people I see in my city have iPhones. But there are more poor countries and poor people in the world than rich.
http://qz.com/826672/android-g... [qz.com]
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And most of them voted for Android.
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Erm...
Yes, vote with their wallets by choosing properly priced Android phones.
Sure, a small number of idiots happily overpay, and a smaller number of bigger idiots happily make people overpaying into some sort of virtue, but that doesn't change the fact that apple is a bit player in the overall smart phone market.
I wouldn't call the second-largest Smartphone marketshare holder, having around 13% of the worldwide smartphone market (and nearly 40% of the U.S. Smartphone market) a "bit player".
Now if we're talking about Windows Phone...
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apple's profits were bigger than the market's profits because everyone else, put together, had net losses.
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This is Slashdot. Unlike accountants, many people here can handle integers, sometimes even real numbers, as opposed to just the naturals.
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You just do the necessary math. They have teams of accountants trained from birth to fool the investors about what's going on in a company. Having them make it look like profits are over 100% is something they do at lunch between the soup and the appetizer. Besides, everyone is required to give 110% at work.
I actually had a friend who's GPA was over 4.0. It wasn't because A+ was counted higher either. It was because he transferred school districts with a different grading systems and number of units, a
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It doesn't, even if no other company made any profit, or if any made a loss then that loss doesn't in any way transfer to Apple's profits.
At best Apple can achieve 100% of smartphone profits for a period if everyone else makes a loss or breaks even, but even that isn't true. Regardless of whether Samsung et. al. have had a bad quarter, there are still a whole lot of players that make small profits - i.e. many of the Chinese firms, so the idea that Apple hit even 100% is complete drivel.
But in fact, it gets
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I think they mean that it's 103% of the _last_ fake number they came up with.
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Re:Utter bollocks (Score:5, Funny)
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LMAO
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Re:Utter bollocks (Score:4, Interesting)
They trot this shit out every once in a while.
They count losses as negative profits, then claim Apple made > 100% of all profits.
It's bad math for dumb people.
Profits are positive, by definition. Anyone saying anything else is trying to cheat somebody. Probably you.
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Profits are positive, by definition.
Not so; profits are revenue minus cost. Sometimes this is negative, in which case it is usually called a loss. However, people would get very angry at you if you told them the profit one year was zero when actually it was a negative number. Suppose a company's profits were 100 in 2014, and -5 in 2015. For all that people will insist the -5 profit was really a 5 loss, when asked what was the 2-year profit of the company none of them are going to say it was 100 rather than 95, and when asked the profit in 20
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It's bad math for dumb people. Profits are positive, by definition.
Sorry if you find the maths and financial concepts too hard, but it actually makes way more sense to calculate the percentages this way. Otherwise you're excluding the market impact of all the companies who make a loss. How can you sensibly compare figures from quarter to quarter and from year to year if you're excluding a different set of companies each time depending on who makes a loss? There's a boundary between simplifying concepts so that more people can understand them and oversimplifying to the p
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Do you have any idea about the current market?
Those phones you list do NOTHING. Literally lost in the noise. That's why at least two of them are considering pulling out of the market altogether and selling rival / generic products instead.
Samsung outsell Apple 5-1. It's just because Apple devices are so CHEAP SHITE sold at premium prices that they make enormous profit. In unit terms, Apple are in second place after Samsung, and the rest barely figure at all.
I manage IT and deal with every kind of BYOD f