“Apple will start seeing declining market share (unit sales) in smartphones in 2012 The surging demand for inexpensive models, coupled with Apple’s commitment to high profit margins and the high-end market, will result in a market share drop of around 2 percentage points, after five successive years of expansion.”
My bet, after 5 minutes of deep and profound thinking, would be:
- Apple will (should?) deviate from their hitherto successful “hold the median with single powerful product” strategy – they will launch a low-end iPhone (Nano) for the masses (3G connectivity, medium spec multimedia features, regular screen and LE Android like features) and a premium offering (iPhone5) that will contain their shock and awe ‘allow us to lead you into the future’ features (iCloud, Siri, 4G LTE, PTT etc).
- This will allow them to protect their margins on their flagship offering, extend smartphone leadership in the US and Western Europe while their LE offering will accelerate their market share gains in Asia, Eastern Europe and LatAm.
- So their market share may dip in 2012 but will recover soon with the launch of iPhone Nano and the iPhone 5.
Deep thoughts over... anyone else with any fingers in the air?
