Sales

Apple beats Samsung in U.S. smartphone sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 6, 2013

Here's some good news: research firm comScore Wednesday announced that during a three-month average ending January 2013 Apple crushed Samsung in United States smartphone sales. Specifically, the iPhone maker was the top US smartphone vendor with a 37.8 percent market share in January 2013, which was up 3.5 percentage points from October 2012. Samsung was second with a notably lower market share of 21.4 percent, a slight 1.9 percentage point increase from October 2012. All told, Apple's 3.5 percentage point gain was Android's loss as we see Google's mobile operating system dropping for the first time. So much about the supposedly "weaker than expected" iPhone 5 demand...

Apple accessories coming to Staples U.S. retail stores by end of March

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Staple, a U.S.-based office supply chain store, has been selling Apple products in Canada and internationally for quite some time now. Last week, their web store began offering a bunch of Apple accessories, including Apple's own stuff as well as third-party products for the iPad, iPod, iPhone and Mac. It was their first such U.S. deal with Apple.

Today, we learn the Framingham, Massachusetts retailer will also start carrying Apple accessories in its brick-and-mortar stores later this month. The retailer has over 2,000 stores worldwide in 26 countries, with 1,886 outlets in North America and Canada so this partnership effectively widens Apple's distribution footprint nationwide...

iPad mini sales overtaking full-size iPad faster than Apple envisioned

Ed Sutherland ∙ March 1, 2013

Yesterday came more evidence that the 7.9-inch iPad mini is outselling Apple's larger tablet. The findings show increasing sales of the iPad mini amid declining demand for the 9.7-inch iPad. Between December and January, shipments of 9.7-inch panels (such as the iPad) fell from 7.4 million to 1.3 million units. In contrast, shipments of 7.9-inch display panels rose to more than five million units, according to the findings by hardware research firm NPD DisplaySearch that echo recent supply chain chatter.

The changing levels of demand suggests consumers prefer the smaller footprint of smaller tablets. However, this faster adoption of the iPad mini over its big brother is causing analysts to revise expectations for 2013 tablet sales...

Shazam stats: One in five US iPhones run the app, 10M songs tagged per day

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

Speaking to the UK's The Guardian newspaper at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Shazam's marketing boss revealed that last month twenty percent of iPhones in the United States used its media discovery and recommendation software. It gets better as even more fans overseas in countries like France and UK used Shazam on their Apple handset, as much as forty percent of them.

And with iPads growing stronger and the next iPhone looming around the corner, any increase in the installed iPhone base is bound to reflect positively on Shazam's numbers. On Monday, Shazam announced it passed 300 million active users globally, 90 million in the United States alone.

The company also launched an update to its iOS client with a revamped iPad interface, a much faster tagging and more streamlined sharing features...

Apple sold eight million iPads to education institutions worldwide

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2013

The iPad is the perfect epitome of the 21st century learning. When schools and faculties integrate these things into their workflow, anything is possible. The iPad, as you know, debuted as the first mainstream tablet and it immediately bolstered Apple's already strong and undisputed credibility in education.

Of course, the gizmo owes much of its success to a strong library of more than 300,000 apps designed specifically for it. That said, it shouldn't really surprise anyone that Apple's tablet is replacing textbooks fast and becoming an indispensable teaching tool for educators and an interactive learning aid for students.

Thursday, the company officially confirmed it has sold a cool 4.5 million iPads to U.S. education institutions alone and a total of eight million iPads to education institutions worldwide - a notable rise versus about 1.5 million iPads found in U.S. education institutions as of January 2012.

While Samsung shipped as much tablets to the entire market during the holiday quarter of 2012, the South Korean giant did not break down sales by region or industry verticals so we really can't tell how strong Galaxy tablets are in education, but our guess is they're virtually non-existent...

Apple’s iPhone push in India: wider distribution, new marketing and installment plans

Ed Sutherland ∙ February 25, 2013

After describing India as having less potential than China, Apple is increasing efforts to compete in the world's second-largest cellphone market. The iPhone maker is now hoping installment payments, coupled with increased marketing can turn single-digit market penetration into a weapon against low-cost Androids.

In full-page ads in the Times of India, Apple calls its unsubsidized $840 iPhone 5 "your dream phone" available for a $93 first payment. Why the big push? The nation's smartphone market is expected to grow five-fold by 2016, setting the stage for the next battle between Apple and Google's free mobile software...

Strategy Analytics: iPhone 5/4S are world’s two most popular smartphones

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 24, 2016

Just as investors are (again) punishing the Apple stock on talk of Foxconn freezing recruitment in China amid weakening iPhone 5 demand (or perhaps because the iPhone 5S is entering production in March?) comes a new survey of the smartphone market by research firm Strategy Analytics. And the numbers look good: the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S each outsold Samsung's Galaxy S III during the all-important 2012 holiday quarter.

This makes the iPhone 5 the world's bestselling smartphone, but what's really eyebrow-raising is that the 16-month old (and now discounted) iPhone 4S also overtook Samsung's flagship device...

AAPL falls on talk of Foxconn hiring freeze

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Shares of Apple are (again) under pressure as Financial Times issued a report Wednesday that Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer that assembles iPhones and other products for Apple and other tech giants, is putting a freeze on recruitment in China as it slows production of the iPhone 5.

It wasn't clear whether Foxconn winding down iPhone manufacturing means that Apple is getting ready to produce a next-gen iPhone or that iPhone 5 demand is falling amid fierce competition in the smartphone market, but investors are already punishing the stock which fell in pre-market trading to under $460, even with a Foxconn spokesperson clarifying that the decision wasn’t related to iPhone 5 production as more employees returned from the Chinese New Year break than a year earlier...

Staples executives confirm US locations will soon carry Apple products

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Last month, test page ads for an Apple TV and other Apple gear popped up on Staples' US website, leading many to believe that the office supply chain was finally going to start offering the Cupertino company's products in its Stateside locations.

Well it was confirmed last night. After Staples reportedly held a meeting with employees announcing the news, executives and other staffers took to Twitter to share their excitement that Apple products would soon be available in their US stores...

Gartner: more than half of all handsets sold in 2012 were Apple, Samsung

Ed Sutherland ∙ February 13, 2013

The battle between Apple and Samsung for smartphone supremacy rages on. While the two rivals accounted for more than half of smartphones sold during 2012, demand for the South Korean firm's phones rose nearly 86 percent while iPhone sales rose by around 22 percent last year. According to Gartner, the two companies took No. 1 and No. 3 spots in overall while ranking first and second in the growing market for smartphones, respectively.

This as the cell phone industry saw its first dip in sales since 2009. Other vendors, of course, were left fighting each other for scraps...

iWatch, iTV: an $80 billion opportunity

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

The iWatch, a rumored Apple smart watch, and the iTV, a rumored standalone Apple TV set, may be just vapourware for the time being, but that's not stopping analysts from guesstimating what the two gadgets might contribute to Apple's bottom line.

Per analyst Katy Huberty, assuming annual sales of 50 million units and an average selling price between $200 and $300, the iWatch could drive an incremental $10 to $15 billion in revenue, or $2.50 to $4.00 in per-share earnings, each year. Dick Tracey's futuristic wrist watch has nothing on it...

iPhone 5 does little to improve Apple’s standing in China

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Even though Apple isn't one to "blindly pursue market share", China has risen to become its second biggest market in terms of revenue, right behind the United States. In fact, CEO Tim Cook is convinced that in the near future “China will become Apple’s largest market”. But despite recently introducing a new interest-free payment option and two million sales during the opening weekend, that wasn't enough to curb China's explosive growth of Android cheapos. And as price-sensitive shoppers continue to favor attractively-priced Android handsets over the pricey Apple smartphone, the iPhone 5 has done little in terms of moving the needle...