“In only one year Android’s smartphone market share catapulted from 1.8% to 17.2% overtaking Apple’s iPhone which grew from 13% to 14.2% of the market. Moreover Android is now activating more phones in the all-important US market, despite the iPhone 4’s recent launch.”
Apple: Short Term Winner, Long Term Loser (hat tip to John Gruber)
Interesting that they use units shipped and market share to determine that Apple isn’t a good investment. How about revenue? Last I checked, Apple was making a ridiculous percentage of the gross profits earned in the smartphone industry. Oh wait— it’s 48% of the entire mobile phone market, actually.
See, it’s that which is going to make a difference to investors: the fact that Apple, despite a smaller unit share, continues to rake in vast amounts of cash from the iPhone and its related enterprises. And they’re good and conservative with their estimates, so they manage to beat those estimates on a regular basis. Their income has been climbing for a while now too.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll continue to do so, but having beaten their guidance every time in the last few years, excuse me if I believe they know what they’re talking about when they project next year’s numbers.
Disclosure: I don’t own any Apple stock. I could have bought some ten years ago, but opted for a G4 Cube instead. I learned Cocoa, and never looked back
