 Your new post is loading...
Apple's iTunes business exceeded $4 billion revenue last quarter. Horace Dediu broke down where all the sales are coming from on his site, Asymco. As you can see, it's mostly a mix of content and app sales.
BlackBerry was up 15% on Feb 4th after it got a ringing endorsement from Bernstein Research. Bernstein slapped a $22 price target on the stock based mostly on the notion that investors don't fully appreciate how big the BlackBerry 10 launch will be. The 15% jump is the just the latest in a series of big days for BlackBerry which was trading close to $6 at its lowest point recently. But before people get too excited about Bernstein's note, or BlackBerry in general, take a look at this chart of Palm when it tried to resurrect its fortunes.
According to Asymco's Horace Dediu, Samsung is blowing all the companies away in advertising. But advertising isn't Samsung's only marketing expense. It also has big, crazy launch parties and promotional discounts. If you look at Samsung's full marketing expenses, you get a better idea about the incredible amount it cost Samsung to become the world's biggest smartphone company.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt revealed the company is now activating 1.3 million Android devices on a daily basis, up from 900,000 in July. For some context, Apple sold ~46.4 million iOS devices last quarter, or 515,500 per day.
It's important to note that this chart only shows PCs vs. Macs--full-fledged computers that Apple actually doesn't sell that many of. (Mac sales are growing nicely, in stark contrast to the PC market, but they aren't blowing any doors off). If the chart included sales of iPhones and iPads, the ratio of PCs sold to Apple products sold would look quite different. And given that the distinction between "a PC" and a tablet or smartphone is becoming ever more blurred, the latter chart would actually be more meaningful.
UPDATE from SAI: "Note: This post has been edited from its original version, after we learned that the data we initially used was flawed. This chart has accurate data from comScore. Our initial chart showed time spent on Facebook had peaked. We can't determine that based on comScore's data because its previous data was unintentionally inflated due to existence of non-user requested URLs. Anyway, Facebook's engagement is definitely flat this year." Time spent on Facebook on desktop computers in the U.S. has peaked and now it's falling according to data from comScore
|
According to Canaccord Genuity, Samsung and Apple have 103% of the smartphone market's profits. They are basically the only two companies making money manufacturing phones.
For years, people have been predicting the death of Microsoft's Windows dominance. And in the last two years, it's finally happened. The rise of iOS and Android have made Microsoft's operating system significantly less important.
Luckily for Microsoft, this hasn't meant the death of its business overall. Thanks to the strength of its Office franchise and its Servers and Tools business, Microsoft is still very healthy.
But, there's no escaping that Windows is what drives the whole company. CEOSteve Ballmer calls Windows, "the heart and soul of Microsoft from WindowsPCs to Windows Servers to Windows Phones and Windows Azure." And that heart is beating a little bit more weakly today than it was in say, 2005.
This chart from Asymco earlier this year illustrates the decline of Microsoft's Windows monopoly as Apple has risen. There are other illustrations of the same thing here and here.
Apple's capital expenditures for the last year were $8.3 billion, which is significantly above its rivals, as this chart from Horace Dediu at Asymco shows.
Dediu believes Apple's capex is significantly above its peers because Apple is investing in data centers like Google, and process equipment like Intel. As a result, its quarterly spending is closer to Google plus Intel.
The ratio of Windows PCs sold compared to Macs steadily increased throughout the second half of the 1990s and during the first few years of the 2000s, thanks in part to the success of Windows 95. But as we reported recently, analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco crunched some numbers and found that this ratio has been declining for the past eight years thanks to Apple's resurgence.
According to Dediu, the ratio of Windows PCs to Macs sold dropped to below 20 in 2011, its lowest level since before Windows 95 was launched. But that only tells part of the story.
In a new post, Dediu compares the ratio of Windows units sold to all Apple devices, not just Macs. When you factor in iPhones and iPads, the ratio of Windows units to Apple devices sold has dropped to less than two.
"Seen this way, Post-PC devices wiped out of leverage faster than it was originally built," Dediu writes. "They not only reversed the advantage but cancelled it altogether."
Apple has only had one tablet that could legitimately be considered a rival: The Kindle Fire. When it launched, there was great buzz about the product and the price. Well, seven months later, the interest in the Fire is gone. ChangeWave research released its most recent data on interest in the Kindle Fire, and as you can see, just 8% of people polled say they will buy one in the next three months. That's down from 22% when the Fire launched. The iPad, meanwhile, is at 73%.
The iPhone accounted for 58% of Apple's total revenue last quarter.
The iPhone didn't exist five years ago. Today, the iPhone business alone is more profitable than Exxon.
You can see how the iPhone has gone from zero to a hundred billion annually in the span of five years.
|
This may stink IMHO