For years, consumers have been demanding larger screens and have placed their buying power behind original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) willing to give them what they want. Apple, slowly accepting the consumer demand despite the vocal minority’s laments, has finally delivered a modern screen size to its iPhone products with the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
This news is old and has been talked about for months now, obviously. What is new, though, is the data showing that Apple’s size upgrade with the iPhone has hit Android OEMs in an unlikely location: their home countries. Counterpoint Technology Market Research, an Asian-based consulting firm that delivers data-driven analyses of market trends, has released a report detailing Apple’s newest attack on the Asian front.
If you’ve ever wondered where Android OEMs get their huge competitive strength from despite Apple’s dominance in western markets, it’s due to their widespread popularity in the eastern and emerging market regions. Apple has been fending off the likes of Samsung in places like the United States, while not being able to make much headway against them, because the iPhone simply wasn’t that desirable of a product on the other side of the Pacific. Until now, that is.
Counterpoint reports that from May 2014 to November 2014, Samsung’s presence in Koreans’ pockets dropped nearly 20%, while Apple saw a huge boost of nearly 25% especially after the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus’ release. Tom Kang, Counterpoint’s research director in Korea had the following comment: “No foreign brand has gone beyond the 20% market share mark in the history of Korea’s smartphone industry. It has always been dominated by the global smartphone leader, Samsung. But iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have made a difference here, denting the competition’s phablet sales. Korea being the world’s highest penetrated phablet market (handsets with 5” above screens) earnestly needed a large screen iPhone for quite a time and now this thirst has been quenched. If there was a better supply of iPhone 6 & 6 Plus 64GB & 128GB models during the month then Apple’s share could have climbed to the 40% level.”
An even bigger jump for Apple took place in Japan, a location where Apple sales have generally done better historically than in other Asian markets. In November 2014, it finished out with a record 51% in sales.
In China, iPhone sales rose sharply as well, but still fell behind Chinese favorites Xiaomi and Lenovo. It took the two combined, however, to stay ahead of the singular Apple entry.
Perhaps Apple took a page from Samsung’s playbook: don’t listen to the old-guard technology junkies and look to what real people want. Apple die-hards in the blogosphere might rail against the larger screens and other new technology, but at least half of the US segment owns a large-screen Android device and an unfathomable percentage of the population overseas owns one as well. So Apple ditches the squeaky wheel in order to compete directly across all fronts and, apparently, it’s working.
As I mentioned back in December, I expect Android OEMs to have a tough 2015 unless they pull their collective heads out of, well, you get the idea.
Source: Counterpoint Technology Market Research
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