Monday, April 9, 2012
When Apple Creates a Google Glasses Product
How is Android left to "scrap" the remaining 20% of profits? It's not a pre-set amount of money. It is what it is. They make profits. You can't call it scrap profits because it isn't just what's left over from Apple. In other words, it isn't a pie, it's all based on what the phones cost. If there were only x amount of profits available per year, and that number could never be exceeded within a year, then yes, it would be scraps. But there isn't, so it's not. Again, because Android leads iOS in unit sales, the difference in profits is because Apple on average charges retailers more money to carry their phones.
You do not pay the same $199 for an iPhone as a "high end" Android phone, because the ultimate determining factor in iPhone price is storage. You get a 16-gigabyte iPhone for $199. The "high end" Android phones are 32 gigabytes. They typically cost $299 to consumers, and some even cost $199. A 32-gigabyte iPhone always costs $299 to consumers unless it is refurbished, bought from an unofficial third-party (e.g., an eBay seller), or is being succeeded by a new model, which only happens once a year. In the meantime Android phones get cheaper to consumers every couple months. While you are still paying $299 for a "high end" iPhone, Android consumers can get "high end" Android phones for significantly less because Google does not set the prices like Apple does.
And the only reason why Apple alone commands 45% of the market is because Apple is the only company that makes the iPhone. Despite your premonitions of doom and gloom, we will likely never know what it is like to have only one company making Android phones. So yes, Android unit sales numbers are split up among many different manufacturers, all of which pale individually next to iPhone unit sales numbers. That is because consumers have more than one company to choose from when they are shopping for an Android phone. Consumers can only choose from Apple if they want an iPhone, hence Apple's individually larger share of the unit sales market. If Apple allowed other manufacturers to make phones with iOS and to customize them as they wish, we both know Apple would not have that 45% anymore. But again, that would likely never happen.
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