The past week, I felt like reading a smartphone tech forum or something when I opened Facebook. A lot of people seemed to have a deep insight into the design trend of Apple’s products, and a lot of them were not afraid to publish their opinions on the web in many different manners. I’m sure you have one too.
The first iPhone came out in 2007. If you remember, there were all-night lineups at local stores. I personally think the waiting reached its worst when the white iPhone 4 came out and quickly ran out of stock. The frenzy is evident in the numbers. In 2012, Apple had the best quarterly earning in history by gaining more than 50% of their revenue from the sale of iPhone 4S, which kept its selling point quite steady throughout its market lifespan. This made the iPhone Apple’s most crucial product among the many they produce, at least from a revenue perspective.
Unlike many other rivalry smartphone companies, Apple has been producing just one design to win the race in the smartphone industry and it’s been undoubtedly successful. This year, again in September, we are surprised by delivery of three products announced at once – iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch. As of today, over four million orders have been placed for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus within the first day of launch in stores. Records show that the iPhone 5 sold 91 million units in total and 2 million pre-orders. iPhone 5 sale took 2 months to reach the 5 million mark. While records in the millions may not seem all that implausible anymore, it is worthwhile to note that these two brother phones still beat all sorts of predictions and statistical records by far.
Currently, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are both out of stock in most places and the wait time for re-stock is about a week – so don’t wait outside. Both phones provide is an overall improvement from the previous iPhone’s features: thinner (the thinnest so far), longer battery life, better camera, etc. Both have prominent antenna bands at the back, ion-strengthened glass with improved polarizer, IPS liquid crystal display and a fingerprint-resistant coating. For the processor, whereas iPhone 5s used A7, the new models use a 64-bit A8, along with similar upgrade in the M7 motion coprocessor to M8. And of course, the list goes on. iPhone 6 Plus, which sets itself apart from iPhone 6 by its image stabilization in camera, landscape mode for content display and a longer battery life, has sold more than iPhone 6 so far. But the feature that really makes the iPhone 6 Plus more attractive must be the larger screen, allowing for easier typing and reading. It would seem that those previous iPhone users who upgraded their phone secretly wished that the touchscreen was larger.
Alongside the new larger iPhone, Apple has announced the first new product line since the death of Steve Jobs – the Apple Watch. The device is known to run apps that tracks health and fitness, includes a touch screen and Siri, and communicates with the iPhone. Apple Watch will be available next year and will cost around $350.
As of 2013, around 50~60% of American adults were smartphone owners. In the scope of the global phone market, market shares of smartphone and feature phone converged only around 2012. In other words, the smartphone market has been gradually increasing, and a successful product such as iPhone would fully benefit from a growing market in increasing their sales by each release. I agree with the 4-million people who have ordered already that the new iPhones have beautiful design. But Apple achieving a higher sale and breaking its previous record is not really new to us – especially when the smartphone market has been growing in global scale every year. The trend shows that the feature phone (or so-called ‘dumbphones’) will almost disappear or reach some saturated point in global phone market in the future. It would be much harder for any smartphone company to achieve improvement in sale because that would require someone to switch to a different smartphone – rather than buying the first smartphone. In that case, a larger portfolio of smartphone products will definitely be helpful to gain more market share for the company by attracting users with different tastes. The compatibility among the same manufacturer’s products – such as iPhone and Apple Watch – could also act as a deciding factor to choose their product for convenience.
Currently, iPhone has over 40% of smartphone market share (with Samsung being the second over approximately 25%) in the US. We can say that since 50% of US population owns a smartphone, of which 40% is iPhone, at least 20% of US population will benefit from the compatibility that Apple Watch offers. This already puts Apple Watch at much better position in the smartwatch market. The health monitoring technology is a rising field in both research and industry. The future market of wearable devices is well defined today – similar to what that of smartphone was before – and smartwatches with health-related metrics already exist in the market.
Apple has a history of entering a sector relatively later than other consumer electronics companies, and the iPhone is a prime example. Today, however, iPhone dominates the smartphone market and keeps the attention of public focused on new releases every year. From Apple Watch’s somewhat relatively high price – about half of that of iPhone – it could be as successful as iPhone becoming the flagship product line for the company and leading force to induce the market with its own innovations. In any case, it is sure that health smartwatches are going to be the next common device that we will see in everyday life.
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