Apple Captures Record 91 Percent of Global Smartphone Profits: Research (cnbc.com) 196
Apple has captured a record share of profits in the global smartphone industry in the third quarter, according to new research, despite grappling with falling iPhone sales. From a report on CNBC:Third-quarter smartphone operating profit reached $9 billion globally of which Apple took 91 percent of the share, Strategy Analytics said in a note on Tuesday. This amounts to $8.19 billion for the U.S. technology giant. Apple has the highest profit margins in the smartphone industry thanks to a loyal brand following and the ability to price its iPhones at a premium. And the figures come even after Apple reported three straight quarters of iPhone sales declines. Sat a long way behind Apple is China's Huawei which managed to grab 2.4 percent of global operating profit share in the smartphone market, accounting for $200 million, according to Strategy Analytics. Chinese start-up brands Vivo and OPPO are in third and fourth place, both capturing 2.2 percent of global smartphone profit each.
Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits.
It means that they are taking a higher percentage of your money than any of their competitors.
You might want the company to have the greatest sales figures (not true of Apple), or the greatest proportional re-investment (not true of Apple), or the greatest customer base even (not true of Apple).
But, like walking through Las Vegas... all that show and money to blow on things comes from one source... people like you paying over the odds for their products.
Value for money (Score:5, Insightful)
You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits.
As long as I'm getting what I consider good value for money I don't care at all if they are making a big profit. The only way Apple or any company makes a big profit is if people like what they are getting for the price. If it wasn't worth the price then they would be forced to charge less. Apple products are a completely discretionary purchase.
It means that they are taking a higher percentage of your money than any of their competitors.
Which is irrelevant if I am getting a higher value for my money as well. Obviously a lot of people think Apple gives better value for the money than the alternatives. You don't have to agree with them for yourself but that doesn't mean they are wrong.
But, like walking through Las Vegas... all that show and money to blow on things comes from one source... people like you paying over the odds for their products.
Clearly people don't find that to be a problem. Yes Vegas wasn't built on winners but people keep coming so obviously they feel they are getting good value for what they spend. If it's not your thing then do something else and I assure you nobody will care or think less of you for it.
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Apple owes its success to the 2008 crash when lots of smart engineers were out of work and were willing to bet thousands of hours on writing apps instead of full time jobs. This created the App economy where Apple gets 30% of the cut but more importantly the apps drive the demand for the phones. People dont want to switch to Android as iOS still has the most and best apps and app developers dont want to switch as the paying public is on iPhones. Android users are more sophisticated and more likely to use a
Re:Value for money (Score:4, Informative)
>The only way Apple or any company makes a big profit is if people like what they are getting for the price.
What a naive way of thinking. Either that or Apple uses predatory tactics to trap people and trick them into using their products.
Monopolies or near monopolies can easily be predatory, but that requires very limited consumer choice. I can't see how smartphones fall in that category.
In my view Apple charges a lot for what they deliver. But I don't have to buy Apple and I don't. Others feel Apple is a value, whether based on quality, functionality, or simply perceived prestige. They buy Apple. That's how the market works.
I suppose there is some lock-in, in that if you've spent a fair amount on Apple apps, you can't switch and take them to Android, whereas on Android, you can take your apps to a different brand of phone or tablet. But that doesn't seem like a predatory practice on Apple's part.
Face it: Apple is expensive but many people are willing to pay Apple's prices. Apple makes a lot of money that way. What's the problem?
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A subset of slashdotters hate free markets. They believe companies should sell at just above cost (if that much!) so they, the self-entitled narcissists, can purchase products without any of that messy production stuff. The idea that a transaction might be beneficial to both parties is simply not a concept they can understand.
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>The only way Apple or any company makes a big profit is if people like what they are getting for the price.
What a naive way of thinking. Either that or Apple uses predatory tactics to trap people and trick them into using their products.
In the market, there are umpty number of Android phone manufacturers, and a few Windows phone manufacturers. Nothing stops anybody from buying those. While I have until now used an iPhone and just bought a 7 a few weeks ago, nothing stops me from using a Lumia going forward, especially if it supports video calling in WhatsApp
Re: Value for money (Score:2)
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Go into the iTunes folder, navigate the sub-folders and then see if they can be copied or not. If not, you're SOL, but if yeah, it can be copied into the music folder of your Android phone or SD card.
I do have a few songs in iTunes, but the bulk of my music collection - here's what I did. I hear something on Sirius XM that catches my attention, I later download it on my PC using one of the many YouTube downloading apps out there. (If I need it in audio format, I'll convert it using Format Factory.) I
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To the scale you are suggesting? Unlikely
It's hardly inconceivable that someone could have spent a couple of hundred a year at the iTunes store and ended up with $1000 worth of music over a few years.
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All I'm suggesting is, if someone has bought a lot of Apple music then they are an Apple customer forever.
Actually, all you are suggesting is you are a fluffer and a nutter.
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Go into the iTunes folder, navigate the sub-folders and then see if they can be copied or not. If not, you're SOL, but if yeah, it can be copied into the music folder of your Android phone or SD card.
So, your answer to the question "can I move my music from my iPhone to an Android phone" is essentially "either yes or no, but I don't know which".
Cheers.
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I have fairly large sized collection. It isn't tough to copy the files to a SD card (rsync), but since I have a YouTube subscription, I just let the music application scan through the collection, then I can just download the songs from Google. Of course, there is the privacy aspect, but the advantage is that you can download what you want to listen to fairly easily when you are away from your music collection.
Of course, Android has some nice music players available, and depending on phone, there might be
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More like CD rips and such downloaded and in iTunes because it used to do a decent job at song management, as well as Apple iTMS purchases. I would say these days, MediaMonkey would be a better utility for organizing music if one isn't purchasing through Apple's store.
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I realize you're an anonymous cow-patty, but really, do you have to display unmitigated bigotry and complete disregard for facts? Do you have to demonstrate that such stupidity exists in the world?
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"You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits."
Unless you're a CEO there or a shareholder of the company.
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It means that they are taking a higher percentage of your money than any of their competitors.
That depends on why you are buying it. If you are buying it as a status symbol, then the higher prices are a benefit, because they make it more exclusive.
Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
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Slap a case on it, get some insurance, and use a secure backpack to lock it up when out and about. Travelon and PacSafe make some decent secure backpacks. For security on the machine, FileVault Pro, and have the user that unlocks FV different from your usual user. That way, an attacker is confronted with the much longer FV boot password user if trying to turn the laptop on, while your day to day user can have a shorter PW.
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Yeah, but those "secure backpacks" will not present much trouble once the thief/robber has made it back home to their tools. They'll cut open that bag in a minute or two.
My advice would be to use a cheap or heavily worn bag or backpack to falsely signal that the computer is cheap or old.
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They will if I am working on it at an airport. Also I don't want to look like a contentious douche-bag.
Slap a Linux sticker over the cute little Apple logo.
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Economic theory [Re:Sigh.] (Score:5, Insightful)
You DO NOT want the company you are buying things from to make record profits.
Standard economic theory says that they will make record profits if and only if their customers believe that they are providing a superior product. So, yes, actually you do want to buy from a company making record profits: this is a sign that their customers like them; and, in this case, iPhones have been around long enough that it is a sign that their customers are repeat customers.
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Churches make record amounts of profit.
De Beers makes record amounts of profit.
Microsoft made records amounts of profit before they were sued for anti-monopoly practices.
Perfume manufacturers make record amounts of profit.
I'm sure Dr Dre makes record amounts of profit from his Beats.
It doesn't follow that they offer a superior product to their competitors. What it tells you is they are deliberately over-priced and under-delivered. And what you've bought into is snake-oil.
In terms of VALUE for money, you'v
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It doesn't follow that they offer a superior product to their competitors. What it tells you is they are deliberately over-priced and under-delivered. And what you've bought into is snake-oil.
I believe you've misunderstood what the products are in the examples you gave.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)
If 2 companies are splitting the profits taken in a market 50/50 and one does a recall that wipes out their profit for a quarter, then the other company is making the same amount of money... but now has "100%" of the profit.
This news is just a reflection of Samsung taking a giant loss on the Note7.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)
"Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley said in a research report Sunday that Apple captured 75% of smartphone industry profits in the second quarter. But that's down from 84% in Q1 and 91% in Q2 2015, he said.
Apple's share of smartphone profits fell because of Samsung's improving profitability driven by streamlining its product lines along with strong demand for the Galaxy S7, Walkley said. Samsung's strong results are expected to continue in the third quarter ahead of the September launch of Apple's iPhone 7, he said."
"Samsung's share of smartphone industry profits improved to 31% in Q2, up from 22% in the first quarter and 19% in Q2 2015."
http://www.investors.com/news/... [investors.com]
Apple's profit share of the smartphone market was in steady decline, and Samsung and others were in ascension. The ONLY reason Apple is back up to 90%+ in Q3 is that Samsung's profit share evaporated in Q3 due to the recall expense. It's that simple.
"Sorry, yes."
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It depends. Pretty much the goal of every business is to score a higher-than-normal profit, and there are a lot of ways to do that. Some of them are clearly unethical and unfair to consumers (Volkswagen). But a lot of them are beneficial to consumers -- like shrewd engineering, efficient manufacturing processes, and economy of scale.
There is also the issue of design which is a subjective judgment for a consumer -- but which doesn't make paying a premium for that thing irrational. Quite the contrary. It
Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
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Interesting thoughts, but flawed.
I like the idea of a company I've brought something from making record profits if what I buy from them is worth the money I've paid, then it's not over the odds.
For example, recently I got work to buy an iPhone 7 (to replace my Samsung S5. Prior to that I had a Nexus 4).
Wow, what a friggen awesome phone compared to my S5, they way iOS works is head and shoulders above Android (in my mind). Was so impressed with the device, I spent my own money to buy another iPhone 7 for the
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I can somewhat agree but look at the stupid competition. Can't buy a cheaper android phone from china without a 60% chance of some kind of backdoor [arstechnica.com]. Also, given how Apple doesn't just discard updates for their phone after 6 months and trying to make the iPhone a black box really appeals to me.
The constant interface between devices. A safer app store, abit shitty search for years. Its really REALLY hard for me to look at an alternative
Hell, it was a Samsung phone I was looking to upgrade my iPhone 5 fr
Not all customers are equal (Score:5, Insightful)
91% of the profits share, would be fine, if they also had 91% of the market share, sadly they have ~40% of the market share.
Why is that sad? Not all customers are equally profitable. Companies that presume otherwise usually find themselves in a bankruptcy court rather quickly.
So either their product is more expensive than their competitors, or they have massive efficiencies that their competitors don't... (or some combination).
Apple phones ARE relatively expensive. This has never been a debate. Obviously most people that buy them find them to be good value for the money. The fact that they charge more than some others is irrelevant. If a company cannot sell something for enough money to make a profit then it is an indisputable fact that people don't value what they are selling.
And yes Apple does realize some cost efficiencies from their size which few others in their market can match.
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Actually, their market share has been running in the 15% range, not 40 (http://bgr.com/2016/05/23/smartphone-market-share-q1-2016/).
This implies that they are making on the order of six times as much profit on each phone. This isn't a cost efficiency due to size issue. Their hardware is simply cheaper to make.
So, yeh, people are paying a whole lot for pure vanity.
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Apple has good hardware, especially in the phone department. If you don't want it, fine. That doesn't mean those who do are particularly vain. You sound more like a jealous loser who can't afford an iPhone and wants to make it seem like he's too good to want one, anyway.
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All the major electronics "manufacturers" use Foxconn and related supply chains. Calling out Apple as if they're special just paints you as an idiot.
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Apple phones ARE relatively expensive. This has never been a debate. Obviously most people that buy them find them to be good value for the money. The fact that they charge more than some others is irrelevant.
Excuse me. You DO realize, of course, that the infamous Exploding Samsung GN7 actually costed MORE than an UNLOCKED iPhone 7 PLUS (for the equivalent storage).
Yet NOBODY EVER WHINES ABOUT SAMSUNG'S HIGH PRICES!!! Why?
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Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
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Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Funny)
Apple products are never broken, they're just held incorrectly.
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No, they were just designed to break easily under normal use. Totally fair!
So you are saying there is a design failure? Because relatively few of the million of iPhone 6 Plus actually are affected, and the others fail to break as designed?
Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
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Apple batteries have been blowing up too. Google it.
So have the brains of Apple haters. No really, Google it.
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That's OK. Those who deal with you know, instinctively, that they are dealing with something better wiped off their shoe with a tissue. You need to see an iPhone, but they just know, it's that obvious.
Does that include the App Store profits? (Score:3)
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If that does not include their App Store profits, then it's even more significant.
Apple's software profits probably look like a rounding-error compared to their hardware profits.
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6B profit (in 2015) from the app store is a nice rounding error to have.
Yeah, well look at Apple's INSANE markup. (Score:3, Informative)
Digital Trends work worked out a while back that Apple makes about $288 in profit for each iPhone sold. The average Android device... well it varies very widely. But According to 'Pocketnow' it works out to only about $25 of actual profit per device.
Honestly... Apple is really REALLY screwing it's customer base by selling them last years hardware in every new phone and just pocketing the profits. And for some reason people STILL flock to them.
Re:Yeah, well look at Apple's INSANE markup. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I hate Apple. I hope they go out of business, sell their headquarters, and the land where it stood is razed and salted.
That said, the "last year's hardware" comment is a bit silly. I can be a hater and still be rational enough to say they make good hardware. Their hardware is cutting edge when released and their CPUs top shelf. Being in denial helps no one.
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I'm as disappointed as everyone else in the new macbook pro, but I also recognize that its a great machine that been incorrectly positioned. If they had positioned it as "The best Macbook Air we've ever made" it would be enjoying completely different sentiment in the press. We'd all still be wondering WTF am I going to get a new pro level laptop, but it would be easier to move on if they admitted outright that they were abandoning the pro market.
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Have you ever touched an Apple product?
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Apple's phone hardware rates with the best available. Being a single manufacturer, they don't release as frequently as Android devices from half-a-dozen manufacturers do, so it might look like they're outdated pretty quickly. However, the hardware remains viable for years, and the iOS updates are optional, if you happen to be one of those who doesn't update because they don't want their device to feel slower. People hold on to iPhones for much longer than Android devices, so I don't know why you think th
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Their hardware design is not "cutting edge". Their hardware efficiency and utilisation is.
There's no arguing that Apple provides a fast and silky smooth experience to the user. But to claim that this is due to "cutting edge" hardware is laughable when most of their competitors regularly outspec Apple's products long before they are launched.
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I suggest you shut your mouth and open your browser.
Well TheFakeTimCook has all the charm and social skills of TheLateSteveJobs
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Digital Trends work worked out a while back that Apple makes about $288 in profit for each iPhone sold. The average Android device... well it varies very widely. But According to 'Pocketnow' it works out to only about $25 of actual profit per device.
Honestly... Apple is really REALLY screwing it's customer base by selling them last years hardware in every new phone and just pocketing the profits. And for some reason people STILL flock to them.
(Apple, circa 2015) "Here's our shiny new iTurd."
*iLemmings buy millions of them*
(Apple, circa 2016) "Here's the same iTurd, in Rose Gold."
*iLemmings still buy millions of them*
I'm not going to even remotely blame the company here when it's rather obvious just how fucking ignorant millions of their rabid fans are.
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Better to be a rabid Apple fan than whatever it is you claim to be. In fact, being a turd is better than being whatever it is you are.
Seriously, your bigotry and unreasoned hatred is so last election.
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Maybe your just the ignorant one. You are depriving yourself of good hardware and software because of some artificial reasons. When you grow up you will understand.
I own Apple hardware, and utilize it when and where necessary. The hardware itself used to be good. Now it's a sealed box with nothing but proprietary connections and no upgrade path. Soldering the fucking hard drive to the logic board is not what I call user-friendly.
I have an army of iLemmings to thank for the fact that Apple's sealed box model and obscene profit margins will become the industry standard.
Ignorance attempts to justify their actions of late.
Re: Yeah, well look at Apple's INSANE markup. (Score:2)
iMessage (Score:2)
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And just because you you didn't post a picture of your last meal doesn't mean it wasn't shit from the neighbor's dog.
An important note missing about that 91% figure... (Score:5, Informative)
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Probably because the Note 7 recall erased their profits and put them in a loss for the quarter. Including the loss is what pushed the mathematically correct but misleading headline that Apple earned over 100% of the profits we saw earlier.
That's because.... (Score:2)
Android commoditizes the remainder of the cell phone market, making margins slim. The revenue from Android is captured by Google in the form of advertising sales on their integrated browser/search instead of by the cell phone manufacturers.
Own the platform, not the factory.
Is this surprising? (Score:2)
Despite the bendgates 'n whatnot, iphones has a very solid reputation for being reliable, secure and simple. You know, like a phone *should* be.
People who make decent money have a tendency to seriously value their time and arn't willing to spend the time dicking around with their device to make it work.
Buying an expensive item risks you overpaying. Buy a cheap item risks you buying something that isn't fit for purpose, and *all* the money is wasted.
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Besides that, an iPhone will still work perfectly after four years, while most Android phones are completely exhausted by then.
Re: Is this surprising? (Score:2)
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Well, off the top of my head:
-You have to manually manage resources because applications can't be trusted to destroy your ram/battery. This is supposedly improved with Android 6 and 7, but there are very few phones that run those versions.
-The interface is far from simple. Every major vendor wants to create their own spin on the UI, so putting two android devices side by side can still result in wildly different interfaces, making it difficult for people to help each other figure things out.
-Assuming you
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Apple is the McDonalds of the mobile world
I'm guessing you don't work in Marketing somehow.
Proud to be an American company. (Score:2)
Cure cancer or spinal injury (Score:2)
Apple, you've got $200 bilion dollars. Put $20 billion of that into finding a cure for cancer or spinal injury or something fucking useful. You know how much money you can make off a cancer cure? About $1 trillion easily. Because you can charge $100,000 per treatment (even if it's one injection) and the insurance companies will gladly pay for it because they are paying way more than that for chemo and other stuff associated with people fucking dying from it. Millions of people get cancer every year .. a can
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Do you give 10% of your income to pay for finding a cure for cancer? If so, I commend you heartily.
Don't Christians tithe? (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm being an ass. Nobody likes to be reminded that people aren't really charitable. This is one of the reasons I'm a socialist. You can't have a functioning civilization based on people's niceness. It's too easily for a few assholes to put us all at each others throats. You can't give people the option to support decent human civilization. They'll trade it all in for
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Far more than 20 billion is being spent on Cancer research. Its not a issue of money. Its just a difficult problem to solve. And by the way Cancer is not one disease. its a symptom of a disease like fever and many differnt things can cause cancer so cancer probably will never have one cure. You will need a cure each for all the thousands of things that can cause cancer
Re: Cure cancer or spinal injury (Score:2)
It's an issue of money. I am involved in research. $20 billion directly spent on cancer would help a little lot. You would be surprised at how little of the money people think is being spent on cancer research is being spent on finding novel treatments.
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The wealthy dont use apps. They have assistants (Trump doesnt tweet himself. He has 2 assistants to whom he shouts out his tweets and they tweet it). Its the assistants who are probably young interns making less than minimum wage, living in crappy shared apartments, surrounded by loads of money at work but having negative net-worths who spend their credit card limits on buying iPhones. Its the one thing in their lives which makes them feel in control. They are willing to skip buying groceries and mooch off
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If you think wealthy people (i.e. those who can afford good hardware) are going to go broke buying an extra life or whatever in a mobile game, you are so out of touch with reality that you probably should drown yourself in the nearest puddle.
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Am I too late... (Score:2)
...to note that Samsung's profits for this year went up in flames?
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Maybe the poor don't all have bad taste in alcohol. Maybe they can only afford bad alcohol.
How do you know they won't buy high quality champagne with all that money?
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Because high quality champagne doesn't go as far, and the poor are practical.
If someone gave me a good chunk of 6 billion dollars I'd soon stop being practical.