Whatever you think of Walmarts business practices, it does not escape from the fact that some companies make more profit by selling cheap in larger volume. That is what we are talking about here.
Yes, some companies do... Walmart is one example. Some companies try, and go bankrupt. Kmart, Woolworths, Zellers (Canada), etc etc. There are far more examples of companies that try to profit on volume and fail, imo. Besides... and to repeat... we aren't debating the 'best' practices for a company, we are debating whether Apple's practices 'doom' it. This was your starting point...
The smartphone sector was dominated by Apple. Now, Android has 75% market share with Apple around 15%, as I understand it. If that is not destroying the competition then I don't know what is!
Then you don't understand competition. Apple is still selling more phones each year, over the previous year. So they are still building their customer base. For each unit Apple sells they make a profit on both the HW and SW. We don't know how they record it on their books, of course, but the unit as a whole is making them a profit. Plus, because it's a closed system - for better or worse - they make money on virtually all the apps purchased (the jailbroken units probably don't amount to much in the overall numbers).
Android is given away by Google, so they aren't making any money from it on other's HW, unless Google happens to have a maintenance contract with that handset maker. Which means that Google needs to make its money on the handsets it sells itself, plus the app market. But ... since anybody can release a smart phone with Android, Google has to compete with the other handset makers using Android. And since the OS is the same across all of those handsets, Google is competing, for the most part, on price. Premium features are hard to differentiate when all of your competitors are using the same toolbox.
So basically, you have a dozens of companies, giving their product away to keep marketshare, waiting for the weak companies to fold up shop and go away.
Meanwhile you have Apple selling their phones with about a 30% margin, if I understand correctly. Didn't I read somewhere that while Apple may have only 15% of the market, they own over half the revenue and close to 80% of the profit? I could be mistaken on the numbers, but it was something like that. That does not spell 'doomed' to me. It spells an opportunity for Apple to take some risks, which most of the Android makers can't afford.
Androids success is inextricably linked to Apples success. If one grows market share, the other loses market share.
[Bold added] No, it doesn't necessarily. That is only true when you have already reached maximum market penetration. At the moment only a third of all phones sold are smart phones. There is still lots of room for
both platforms to increase their market share.
Yes, people want value. I agree with you. But here's the rub. Apple are pricing high with an increasingly inferior product.
Specs are not 'value.' You are falling into the same trap that most tech minded people fall into. The list on the side of the box has nothing to do with 'value'. It is the consumer, and only the consumer, who assigns 'value' based on the look, feel, and how easy it is to use. Plus a bunch of other things too.
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Walmart also uses their buying power to drive down purchase prices from manufacturers as well. That helps in the bottom line a great deal....
A lesson Apple has learned too. They have been very successful at not only getting parts at a preferred price, they have hobbled their competition by sometimes buying up the entire supply of something. Or, in one case, buying up the bulk of airfreight capacity prior to Christmas, leaving their competition having to get their product to market by ship.
