Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing

Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by geoff-codes on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:09AM (#10184987)

OK.

Per this 2011 article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/media/researching...), Kleenex has a 47.1% share of the facial tissue market. I assume these numbers reflect the U.S. (rather than global) facial tissue market.

Per this recent article (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/03/iphone-us-market-share-c...), Apple has a 44.2% share of the U.S. smartphone market.

Although the text of the article doesn't say it explicitly, the title of this article effectively screams "Apple isn't well diversified! Its making too much money on one thing!" I really don't see the sky falling here by any means. Barring a seismic shift in the smartphone market, Apple will continue to dominate the smartphone market, making obscene amounts of money; they will probably also continue to innovate. And Kleenex will continue to dominate the facial tissue market.

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by incepted on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:30AM (#10185048)

> Apple will continue to dominate the smartphone market, making obscene amounts of money; they will probably also continue to innovate

Apple is certainly going to continue making a lot of money from the iPhone but they haven't innovated a single thing since the iPad. Actually, they've been playing catch up on pretty much every single front and they are still way behind on quite a few (e.g. wireless charging, NFC, ...).

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by geoff-codes on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:33AM (#10185059)

Agreed. Should have said "hopefully" rather than "probably".

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by onion2k on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:30AM (#10185044)

Suggesting Apple is will always be on top with no possible contenders to their crown is strikingly similar to the way people talked about Microsoft in the late-90s. And Nokia before them. And IBM before that. And countless other businesses that dominated their respective industries.

It is highly unlikely the current #1 will not be #1 forever.

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by tonyedgecombe on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:24AM (#10185022)

But Kleenex is one of many brands owned by Kimberly-Clark, the world could stop buying facial tissues tomorrow and the parent would probably survive.

I guess the question for investors is is could Apple loose market share in the future in the same way Blackberry or Nokia did in recent history?

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by WDCDev on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:34AM (#10185068)

This is a horrific comparison, and supports the case for more diversification of Apple's product lines not less.

Kimberly Clark is an extremely diversified company in the home goods and HBA market. Some of the brands they own:

Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex, Poise and Depend

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by andyjohnson0 on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:22AM (#10185015)

Not a useful comparison. The facial tissue market isn't subject to ongoing massive disruption by rapidly changing technologies. The smartphone market is.

Imagine that its 1984 and you've just used the same argument, substituting 'IBM' for 'Kleenex'...

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by geoff-codes on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:31AM (#10185052)

Ongoing? Maybe not. But, rather than talk IBM in 1984 (which is probably a bad example vis-a-vis Apple products and their breakthrough impact), I'll refer you to the facial tissue breakthrough product of 1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLa0IGW1k8g

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Re:Apple's financial dependence on the smartphone is increasing by notNow on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @07:37AM (#10185083)

Sorry for raining on your parade and interrupting your chest-thumping session but The smartphone market is near saturation point and soon the sales figures would reflect that and Apple better be ready for this eventuality should it wishes to survive the ship.

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