HappySqurriel said:
famousringo said:
KHlover said:
Interesting, but why does Apple only win in the USA? I really have no clue, but I hope there won't be a "herp derp patriotism" post any time soon^^ |
It's not exactly that Apple only wins in the USA. As far as I know, it's still slowly growing worldwide marketshare, as well.
However, the economics of the mobile phone market in the US are basically the most fertile soil for the iPhone to grow in. The US market is almost entirely post-paid, and wherever there are post-paid, subsidized phones, iPhone demand is strong enough that Apple can command a premium subsidy from the carrier. Where a competing $500 Samsung phone might get a $300 subsidy from the carrier, the iPhone gets a $450 sibsidy, and the end user sees the same $200 price for each. Apple gets paid a premium, but not from the end user. The carriers pay the higher price because iPhone customers tend to be more valuable and loyal, and because not offering the iPhone tends to cause a carrier to lose subscriptions.
Many other markets have less focus on expensive post-paid plans, and and instead offer cheaper pre-paid plans with no phone subsidy. End users are on the hook for the full $650 iPhone price (adjusted by various currency conversions and taxes which tend to make it even more expensive. In fact, Foxxcon is opening up assembly facilities in Brazil to avoid onerous import taxes on foreign-made electronics), so growth is much slower in these markets.
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Yeah, I suspect there is probably a correlation between the countries with the most expensive cell phone plans and the highest ios marketshare ... From the tiny amount of research I've done on this, Canada and the United States are paying twice as much for a monthly cell phone plan as people are throughout much of Europe, and I suspect that the subsidized cell phone and high cell phone plans are interconnected; essentially companies subsidize the iPhone to protect their high margins on cell phone plans, and these companies also need to keep the margins on their cell phone plans high to justify the large cell phone subsidy.
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Thank you for those awesome long replies, I really didn't expect any when I wrote this post^^
