Apple: to be or not to be?

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So, Apple Corporation has published its latest financial
report, reporting record revenue (over $54 billion) and excellent sales
(75 million iOS devices)
for the first fiscal quarter (October – December 2012). In just one
quarter, the company sold a record number of iPhone smartphones: 47.8 million devices. Sales of
iPad tablet computers for the same period amounted to 22.9 million devices.

Despite the fact that all these indicators turned out to be slightly lower than
analysts' forecasts, it is clearly premature to talk about a decrease in demand for Apple devices
. Recall that it was previously reported that Apple was reducing
orders for the supply of components for the iPhone 5 us companies board of directors email database to 50%. However, Tim Cook refuted these speculations. According to him
, the corporation has a wide network of suppliers, and even if the fact of a reduction
in supplies from one or more of them took place, this does not give reason to draw
conclusions about insufficiently high demand for the new model.

However, every year it becomes more and more
difficult for the corporation to meet the high expectations of consumers and investors. Unfortunately, with the growth
of competition in the market, Apple's position
is becoming increasingly shaky. Today, dozens of
smartphone and tablet models are available on the market that are comparable to Apple devices in their
characteristics, but differ favorably from them in price.

The level of smartphone penetration is growing worldwide, the market
is becoming saturated, and the sales rate is gradually slowing down. Further market growth will
occur primarily due to developing countries, where
budget models of mobile devices are in demand. In this case, what future
awaits Apple,
which continues to operate in the high price segment?

According to IDC data for the third quarter of 2012, Apple's share of
the global connected devices market was 15.1%. Samsung's share was 21.8%.
At the same time, Samsung's share of the smartphone market is 2 times larger: 14.6% for Apple and
31.3% for Samsung. For
comparison, a year ago, Apple's share of the smartphone market reached 23%. Apple still holds the lead in the
tablet computer market (53.8%), while
Android tablets
have already captured 42.7% of the market.

From Russia with love
In Russia, Apple is loved. Of course, we should not forget that the penetration rate
of smartphones in Russia is only about 30%. And in general, the iPhone or iPad is far from a mass product. Nevertheless, Apple devices
are quite popular in our country. According to Svyaznoy, Apple's share of
the Russian smartphone market reaches 7%. According to M.Video, Apple accounts for more than 36%
of tablet computers sold in 2012.

We decided to find out how Russian buyers received the new products — iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. Let us recall that official sales of these devices began in
Russia in mid-December, traditionally, several months after the start
of sales in the USA. (By mid-December, the most impatient had already become happy
owners of iPhone 5 and iPad Mini, purchased abroad or on the "gray"
market). We asked the largest Russian sellers of mobile technology to sum up
the results of the first month of sales.

Grigory Rzyanin, Deputy Director of Retail Sales, White Wind DIGITAL

Despite the huge number of pessimistic forecasts, the simultaneous release of two new gadgets from Apple was traditionally successful. See for yourself: during the first week of iPhone 5 sales, we sold three times more devices than during the same period when iPhone 4 sales started. The popularity of the smartphone allows us to hope for high sales in the future. The launch of the iPad mini was not accompanied by price wars and did not cause global discussions in the press, but most players in the market began to experience a shortage of goods after the first days of sales. Demand clearly exceeded supply.

Vladislav Zavyalov, Apple Product Marketing Manager, re:Store network

Pre-New Year sales showed a huge demand for new products released at the end of 2012: iPad mini and iPhone 5. Traditionally, new models generate great consumer interest, which exceeds supply. It is difficult to compare demand for the previous model and the current one, since last time there was a shortage of iPhones, and this year there was significantly more product. But still not enough to satisfy all demand.