Apple holds second place in US Smartphone market

[whizpup]

I ESPECIALLY love these two news tidbit linked together:

March 10, 2009 "Apple holds second place U.S. smartphone share"
April 30, 2007 Ballmer: iPhone has 'no chance'


Ballmer: iPhone has 'no chance'
updated 01:45 pm EDT, Mon April 30, 2007
Ballmer on iPhone

The iPhone has no hope of gaining a true foothold in the cellphone marketplace, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The company head told an interviewer at the USA Today that, as with computers, future control of the mobile handset business would primarily depend on software influence rather than hardware. Apple's insistence on attaching its code to a premium device could prevent it from getting any more than a small percentage of the world's cellphone user base, Ballmer predicted.

"Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? I want to have products that appeal to everybody," he said. "We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

 

[ngenerator]

March 10, 2009 "Apple holds second place U.S. smartphone share"

Please tell me you wrote the date wrong on purpose?

 

[sorchard]

I ESPECIALLY love these two news tidbit linked together:

March 10, 2009 "Apple holds second place U.S. smartphone share"

Apple's insistence on attaching its code to a premium device could prevent it from getting any more than a small percentage of the world's cellphone user base, Ballmer predicted.

I ESPECIALLY love the lack of reading comprehension. Where is Apple on the world stage? Certainly not up there with Nokia and RIM.

 

[Small White Car]

I ESPECIALLY love the lack of reading comprehension. Where is Apple on the world stage? Certainly not up there with Nokia and RIM.

Where's your reading comprehension?

The point of the thread is that Steve Ballmer said: "The iPhone has no hope of gaining a true foothold in the cellphone marketplace."

And clearly that was wrong.

Who said anything about being as big as Nokia? What does that have to do with anything?

 

[kdarling]

He would probably be right, if the iPhone price had stayed at $500 with contract, as it was when he said those things.

But of course it didn't.

His real failure was to not foresee that its price could and would fall.

 

[sorchard]

Where's your reading comprehension?

The point of the thread is that Steve Ballmer said: "The iPhone has no hope of gaining a true foothold in the cellphone marketplace."

And clearly that was wrong.

Who said anything about being as big as Nokia? What does that have to do with anything?

Looks to me as though the point was clarified by saying "the world's cellphone user base", according to the article quoted.

Therefore, it looks as though he was correct. The iPhone may be number 2 in the US (according to an article quoted by the OP), but on the world stage Nokia and RIM are the leaders (I think it's RIM that are still second, anyway). Aren't Apple still in 4th place or lower? (this may sound like I am too lazy to find out, but I am on GPRS (not even EDGE) and so pages take a decade to load anyway.

I realise that it is almost suicidal in this forum to not take anything Ballmer says with a pinch of salt (and anything Jobs says as gospel), but there we are.

 

[bozzykid]

I ESPECIALLY love these two news tidbit linked together:

March 10, 2009 "Apple holds second place U.S. smartphone share"
April 30, 2007 Ballmer: iPhone has 'no chance'

I love how you forgot to mention Apple's market share did not grow in the last quarter while Android's almost doubled. Taking things out of context can go both ways.