Top Bananas | Tag Archives: market share

Essential Smartphone Not So Essential After All

Posted on May 25, 2018 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Andy Rubin, the co-founder of Google’s Android operating system, started a company called Essential, which is now trying to sell itself.

There’s a mistake people make all the time. If one person has success, they automatically assume that person will always have success from now on. What they don’t realize is that sometimes success is more of an accident than a well-planned operation.

Such is the case with Andy Rubin. Andy helped create the Android operating system which originally was designed to mimic Blackberry OS since Blackberry smartphones were considered the elite smartphone at the time. When Apple introduced the iPhone, Andy immediately knew Android’s future had to mimic the iPhone. Because the iPhone was limited to a handful of carriers at first, Android could mimic the iPhone and give people an iPhone-like experience without getting an iPhone.

Andy later left Google to form a company called Essential, which tried making their own line of smartphones. Amazingly, investors once valued Essential as a $1 billion dollar company before they even shipped a single product. All of this high valuation came about because Essential was created by Andy Rubin who also created Android. Therefore, according to investors’ logic, Essential should also be valuable because it would soon dominate the smartphone market like Android did.

Of course what people failed to realize was that Essential created nothing more revolutionary than another Android smartphone. With Android smartphones available from dozens of manufacturers, there was no compelling reason to buy an Essential smartphone just because it was made by a company run by the creator of Android. People don’t care who makes a phone just as long as it’s cheap enough and useful enough for their needs.

Essential had to cut the prices of their smartphones to sell more and now they’ve announced they won’t make any more smartphone. That’s because they never had a viable business plan in the first place. Why would the world care about another Android smartphone when most Android smartphone makers are losing money selling smartphones?

Essential likely will disappear from the world because it literally has no reason to exist in the smartphone market. The company may try to survive as a smartphone device manufacturer and that may give them more success, but as another Android smartphone maker? Even LG Electronics and Sony have trouble making money selling Android smartphones. Why did anyone think Essential would have an easier time?

Human beings are basically illogical. The Essential smartphone wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything special either. The Android market is tough because Samsung dominates and most other companies just lose money selling Android smartphones. Even Google can’t make money selling Android smartphones, so why did anyone expect Essential to have massively better luck?

Because Android is a free operating system, it’s turned Android smartphones into a commodity, and if you can buy an Android smartphone from any company, there’s little reason to stay loyal to any particular company. Android may have massive market share, but its worst enemy is itself.

Enterprise Choosing Macs and iPhones

Posted on April 26, 2018 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: When companies give employees a choice of devices to use, most choose Apple products.

In the old days, IT departments used to dictate the equipment workers could use. Typically that meant Blackberry mobile phones and PCs running Windows. The goal behind such standardization was simply to make life easier for the IT department, regardless of what other departments really needed. This essentially was like having the tail wag the dog.

When the iPhone appeared, people started demanding iPhones. Once people got used to the simplicity and reliability of the iPhone, they started gravitating towards the Macintosh as well. Now the latest survey shows that when given a choice, a large number of workers prefer using a Macintosh over a Windows PC and an iPhone over an Android smartphone.

Smart companies know that by making workers happy, they’ll get more productivity out of those workers and attract and keep workers. While Windows PCs still dominate the enterprise, the steady growth of the Macintosh means that more people are becoming familiar and comfortable using the Macintosh as well. At one time, the future was anything related to Microsoft. Today, the future is anything related to Apple, Google, and Amazon. Microsoft is becoming an afterthought.

Microsoft will still be around. They just won’t be as influential and dominant as they once were. So if you want to increase your chance of success in the corporate world, don’t focus solely on Microsoft or Windows. Broaden your skills to understand iOS, macOS, Linux, and Android. That’s just the future. To see what happens to people who don’t follow the future, just look at all those people who once insisted mainframes and minicomputers would always be dominant. That’s the future of people who still insist that Windows will always be dominant.

Apple Acquires Digital Magazine Subscription Service

Posted on March 12, 2018 by admin Posted in Business Leave a comment

What it is: Apple acquired Texture, a digital magazine subscription service.

Texture is a digital magazine subscription service that costs $9.99 a month but gives you access to over 200 different magazines. Bye subscribing to Texture, you can read magazine articles and save them to read later on your device. Now Apple has announced they’re acquiring Texture to incorporate into their Apple News service.

The eventual goal is to provide a variety of news sources to people so they can access information form different sources. Of course, that assumes that people want to access information from different sources. In most cases, people simply gravitate towards the news they like best that supports their point of view, and avoid any news that contradicts or threatens their point of view.

Still the idea is sound. By adding Texture to Apple News, readers will be able to access information in both newspapers, news sites, and magazines. Apple is simply trying to become a one-stop shopping place for news lovers of all kind, although why anyone would think magazines like People would constitute news is questionable.

Still, Texture includes access to Bloomberg, Wired, and National Geographic among other magazines, so you can be certain of finding something useful, educational, and interesting. Now the real trick is to get people to think one what they read rather than simply parrot what others have said. If Apple can succeed in getting people to think for themselves, that will be a miracle. Most likely, Apple News will be able to give people access to information, but it will be up to them to actually use that information intelligently.

Let’s hope people will be up for the challenge instead of staying locked in their own echo chamber of reading news that only buttresses their own ideas and beliefs.

Apple Watch Dominates Wearables Market

Posted on March 1, 2018 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple sold more smart watches then the entire Swiss watch industry combined.

Back in the old days, Nokia dominated the smartphone market. Then Apple introduced the iPhone and killed Nokia’s business while also hurting Finland’s economy in the process. Now Apple is poised to do the same thing with the Apple Watch.

When Apple revealed the Apple Watch, many critics couldn’t see a use for it, despite the obvious advantages of real-time health monitoring. Now Apple revealed that they sold more Apple Watches than the entire Swiss watch industry (Omega, Swatch, and Rolex) combined. The Swiss watch industry simply can’t compete as the Apple Watch dominates the smart watch category. Few people want to settle for a “dumb” watch other than as a jewelry accessory, so Switzerland’s entire watch industry risks fading into gradual irrelevance.

Can the Swiss watch industry compete? No. Even if they embrace a smart watch concept, they must now compete against the Apple Watch with fewer features and fewer apps. Fitbit has tried unsuccessfully to compete against the Apple Watch along with Android Wear, which is nearly as invisible as high-end Android tablets. The watch industry and the wearable computer market is steadily moving towards Apple.

For real-time health monitoring, the Apple Watch has defined itself as the standard. That means more hospitals will adopt the Apple Watch and more health care providers will follow. As the health care industry adopts the Apple Watch, they’ll have little reason to support two platforms so they’ll likely stick with the Apple Watch instead. That means Fitbit OS and Android Wear will be distant followers with a small share of the overall wearable computer market.

The Apple Watch still isn’t perfect, but it’s getting more versatile with each generation. Right now, people are using an iPhone with the Apple Watch as an accessory. In the future, people might dump the iPhone altogether and just use an Apple Watch instead with an iPad as an accessory. Either way, this combination of an Apple Watch/iPhone or Apple Watch/iPad means more sales of the Apple Watch. One day, the Apple Watch will likely rival sales of the iPhone because of the health monitoring benefits alone.

The Apple Watch is the next big product line that’s slowly gathering momentum. Just as the iPhone didn’t break sales records initially, so did the Apple Watch start off slow but gradually grow in sales. Already the Apple Watch dominates the wearable computer market. Tomorrow, there won’t be any doubt.

Fitbit Tries to Compete (Again)

Posted on February 28, 2018 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Fitbit is trying to compete with the Apple Watch with another smart watch.

At one time, Fitbit was the leader of wearable computers that are mostly geared for fitness tracking. Then the Apple Watch arrived that could do fitness tracking and so much more. Fitbit decided to fight back by releasing their own smart watch complete with their own operating system. Unfortunately for Fitbit, sales of their smart watch failed to take off.

The problem is that Fitbit is starting from scratch trying to convince developers to create an app ecosystem based on a product that few people even have. Even worse, once you learn how to create apps for Fitbit, your skills are relatively useless to create apps for anything else. In comparison, lots of people own an Apple Watch and once you learn the basics for creating Apple Watch apps, you can easily create apps for the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Macintosh. So why would any developers want to create apps for Fitbit?

The answer is simple. They have no reason to develop for Fitbit. With few developer support, there’s no reason for people to buy a Fitbit either. With few customers, there’s no reason for developers to create apps for Fitbit.

Fitbit is trapped in a vicious cycle of no return. How can they get people to buy a Fitbit? Beyond their fading name recognition, they offer little compelling reason to buy it over an Apple Watch beyond a lower price. Then again, you can still buy Windows RT Surface tablets cheap too and nobody’s buying those en masse. If your product’s only compelling advantage is a low price, you have no compelling advantage.

Fitbit has no strategy for competing against the Apple Watch other than mimicking the Apple Watch and hoping people will want a copy of an Apple Watch instead of the real thing. Some people want to save money and buy a clone of an Apple product. Most do not. People who buy cheaper clones of products aren’t loyal to a product either so they make the least loyal and least profitable market. If Fitbit continues pursuing this market, their chances of success is about the same as Samsung’s Tizen operating system.

Fitbit has nowhere to go but down, and they’re heading in that direction as quickly as possible. They should stick with low-cost, easy to use fitness trackers, and then watch that market get run over by the Apple Watch eventually as well just as the iPhone wiped out dedicated GPS devices for cars. The best way to compete against the Apple Watch is to create a compelling product that doesn’t have a rival. Fitbit likely won’t do this so expect their name to go down in the history dustbins along with Palm, Pebble, and JooJoo (which tried to sell a tablet to compete against the iPad).

To read about Fitbit’s latest struggles, click here.

Apple Gets 51% of Smartphone Revenue

Posted on February 15, 2018 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: With the release of the iPhone X, Apple has more than 51% of the total revenue generated by smartphone sales.

Competing against Apple is a tough battle. It doesn’t matter how many Android devices other manufacturers flood the market because the profits generated by Android devices is minuscule compared to the profits generated by Apple’s iPhone. Apple takes in more than 90% of the profits from the smartphone market and now Apple has captured 51% of the smartphone revenue as well.

That means if you’re trying to compete against the iPhone, you have few choices. One, you can flood the market with low-cost devices and make a minuscule profit on volume. While this tactic works, it’s also a lot of effort to make a small amount of money. That’s also risky because many Android device makers lose money selling Android devices. It make no sense to lose money selling products.

The second approach is to slavishly copy Apple and introduce iPhone clones. When Apple introduced the silly notch on the iPhone X, critics derided it as a kludge. Now many Android device makers are planning to offer a similar notch on their own smartphones. So if the notch is poor design on the iPhone X, how is the same type of notch suddenly acceptable on Android devices?

The toughest part about Android is that all of these smartphone manufacturers are unofficial working for Google. Google makes the operating system and other companies make the devices that run Android. That means other companies take the risks and hassle of selling devices and often selling them at a loss. The only company that truly benefits from Android is Google. Everyone else has to scramble just to eek out a tiny profit.

Samsung is the only company that makes a profit on smartphones and tablets, but their profits are far smaller than Apple’s profits on the iPhone. As Apple increases their profit share and slowly increases their revenue share, how much longer can Android device makers survive? Samsung tried to free themselves from dependence on Android by creating their own Tizen operating system, but why would anyone want to use Tizen that offers a small number of apps when they can just buy an Android smartphone that offers thousands of apps? That effectively kills any chance that Tizen can help Samsung free themselves from Android.

Android device makers are stuck in a losing market with no hope in sight. Most likely they’ll continue losing money for the benefit of Google and continue chasing Apple by slavishly copying everything including flaws like the notch design of the iPhone X. When you see Android device makers lacking imagination, you can see why they also lack profits as well.