Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Is Apple Losing its Grip?

Think I am exaggerating with my headline? Maybe…but then maybe not. There are warning signs all over the place that Apple is indeed starting to lose its grip in the mobile marketplace.

For instance, their stock prices has been slipping badly. In September, Apple stock peaked at $700. Today, as I write this, the stock is at $584.

In the smartphone market, only 15% of the phones out there are iPhones…75% are Android. And surveys of current iPhone owners seem to indicate more and more will not be buying Apple phones at contract renewal time. The reason may be a perceived lack of innovation. The press hammered Apple on the iPhone 5 as just being barely above boring with their new features.

As for tablets, 3rd quarter results show Apple slipped from 59% ownership of the market to just above 50%. Android tablets, especially the Nexus 7” and 10” tablets, are starting to gain strength. In some cases they have much higher resolution than similar iPads. The Apple iPad mini does not have the retinal resolution of its big brother nor of the iPhone 5. A dumb decision in the view of many.

There is no doubt that the Apple ecosystem is the best in the mobile market, but Android Smartphone apps are catching up rapidly (the same cannot be said yet of the Android Tablet apps). And now Microsoft is in that arena.

It will be interesting to see the results for the upcoming Christmas selling season and the first quarter of next year. Because Apple just did “refresh” of all their big products, they have 6 to 9 months of dead time ahead, when no new products will be introduced. We shall see. - JRC

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