Whatever your thoughts on Apple as a company, one thing is 100% clear: Apple is killing Samsung where it counts – revenues and profits. And this isn’t new either; Apple’s been doing this for years, despite Samsung having a larger product line AND selling more units.
So what gives? If Samsung is selling more handsets and products overall, shouldn’t it be making more money? If we were talking about cars then, yes, it would. But we’re not; this is phones we’re talking about and making money with phones is a much tougher gig.
Samsung’s big issue is software: 1) it’s not very good at building software it can monetise and 2) without owning the software you’re effectively leaving billions of dollar’s worth of app-based revenue on the table. Apple knows this which is why it has iOS. Ditto Microsoft, albeit to a lesser extent.
This is also why Samsung developed Tizen; it did it so that it could attempt to make money from its software. However, Tizen is a long ways behind iOS and Android and looks set to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Apple’s business is so big at present that its “other”, non-iPhone-related profits – so, things like Macs, Apple TV and Beats – are around twice the size of Samsung Mobile’s profits. Factor in iPhone sales and Apple’s products are around 10 TIMES the size of Samsung Mobile’s.
“Samsung consistently introduced two new flagship phone launches each year, built and shipped at least twice as many phones as Apple, released a flurry of tablets and has shipped a variety of other "IM" products ranging from Gear watches to Gear VR goggles to 360 VR cameras to Bluetooth earbuds to Windows PCs and ChromeOS netbooks,” notes Apple Insider.
It added: “Despite all this, Samsung is consistently selling less and earning less each year, while Apple keeps delivering new peaks in revenues and profits on a totally different scale at the top of the chart. In its last quarter, Apple delivered greater profits than Samsung's IM had earned over the last 2.5 years.”
This must be a painful experience for Samsung, as the company is spending untold billions on R&D and research and the marketing of multiple devices and, all in, it is basically not making them anything when compared to Apple’s colossal year and year profits.
The fact that Samsung sells more phones than Apple, but makes less money, A LOT less money, pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the power of owning both the software and the hardware.
And despite the Galaxy S8, this trend will continue well into the future.
iPhone Sales Could Total 220 to 230 MILLION In 2017 ALONE
The iPhone 8 release date is a huge talking point at present. Multiple sources claim the iPhone 8 will arrive several weeks after Apple’s iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus.
The reason? Production issues, apparently. And when you’re making phones in the quantities Apple is… there’s always going to be some issues.
Reports suggest Apple is struggling with the new TouchID sensor, which may or may not be integrated inside the iPhone 8’s OLED display.
According to a new report from DigiTimes, Apple is prepping for around 50 million units per quarter from when the iPhone 7s and iPhone 8 are released. In total, the report muses, Apple could make and sell around 230 to 230 million iPhone 7s and iPhone 8 handsets.
And that’s WITHOUT factoring in sales of older iPhone models like the iPhone SE, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and the iPhone 6s series.
ADI, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, Cypress, NXP, Qualcomm, STMicroelectronics, and TI are all making components for Apple’s new iPhones.
TSMC, meanwhile, is making Apple’s new 10nm A11 chipset which is expected to deliver some serious performance upgrades over the outgoing iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
To put these figures into context, Samsung is apparently looking to sell 60 million Galaxy S8 units. That’s Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus combined.
The next question, at least in my mind, is how is Apple going to “sell” the iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus? How is it figuring out demand for these handsets versus the more impressive iPhone 8?
The iPhone 8 will obviously be the more popular release, despite its likely $1000+ RRP, but how does one go about augmenting production processes to reflect this? The mind boggles.
Both the iPhone 7s and iPhone 8 will get a launch inside late-Q3/early-Q4 with a release date following shortly thereafter. For pricing, expect to pay over $1000 for the iPhone 8 and either less or around the same price as current-generation iPhone models for the iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus.
