AppleInsider takes a look at the IDC’s smartphone market figures.
IDC reported that overall “smartphone average selling prices (ASPs) have continued to decline as the appetite for more affordable devices grows. ASPs were down -12.5% in 3Q13, accounting for an average price of $317.”
Apple’s iPhone ASP for the quarter was $635, down from the company’s year ago figures of $675. The company reported selling 33.8 million iPhones, resulting in about $21.5 billion in gross revenues.
At $317 each, IDC’s estimate of 261.1 million smartphones results in nearly $82.8 billion in total revenues. However, these numbers include Apple’s much higher iPhone ASP. Subtract Apple’s $21.5 billion and you’re left with $61.3 billion.
That means phablets accounted for a whopping 54.8 million of the total number of Q3 smartphone shipments, 1.6 times as many phones as Apple sold in the quarter. Multiplied by IDC’s $443 ASP, these phablets account for $24.3 billion in total revenue. That’s more than Apple’s total revenue, but there’s far less profit there because the ASP per premium device is whopping $192 less.
So what does all these figure mean?
This reinforces that about two thirds of the overall smartphone market is represented by extremely low end “mass market” devices that are really only called “smartphones” because the industry has decided that running Android makes a device “smart,” even if it is a product like the Samsung Galaxy Y, with a hard to read, low resolution screen and such anemic processing power and limited memory that it can’t really run apps and can’t be upgraded, with hardware specs inferior to Apple’s iPhone 3G from five years ago.
It is a reminder that the mobile market is made up of different segments. Apple targets a specific segment of the market where it can maximise its profits. Its competitors have to go into all segments of the market to increase the volume they sell to make up for the significantly lower profit margin.
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