If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean?
BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry, which is quite huge worldwide in terms of revenue and more importantly, profit. It depends on how narrowly you define "industry."
You Apple fanboys are constantly moving the goalposts. First it was who sells more devices, then it was who had more revenue. Now you've lost the "who has more profits" argument as well. What's it going to be next? Who uses more aluminum in their devices?
I never understood why people are so proud of a company having significantly higher margins than their competitors. Unless I owned _stock_ in a company (and then refused to buy their products), I'd rather buy my stuff with as razor-thin of a margin as possible.
But thanks for the link, I'll be using these statistics in future debates against the iCult.
Margins are an indication of how good the product is. Either you compete on quality, or you compete on price, basically. Also, value != price alone, or even the margin the company is making on the product (they could just be more efficient and better at execution than their competitors).
Margins are an indication of how much you're getting screwed by your supplier.
Now don't get me wrong, a number of Apple-users are rational beings. They actually argue to me that they get huge value from iDevices, and I'm fine with that. If its your cup of tea, yes, go on and get it. (And I won't call these guys part of the iCult. Rational Apple-users are indeed... rational).
However, people like you argue that high margins are a good thing. NO THEY'RE NOT. Margins are:
* Cost of the device MINUS cost that Apple spent to create the device
The larger the margin, the more Apple is screwing you out of your money. Period. No rational consumer should EVER be happy about being conned out of tons and tons of money.
And to see these idiotic members of the iCult, so proud... so happy to waste money, and BRAG about the margins that Apple is stealing from them... it really is enough to make me lose faith in the free market.
In case you don't know, Strategy Analytics are the ones who define "units sold" as "units shipped". I'd imagine they are capable of taking similar shortcuts with profit share estimates.
BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry, which is quite huge worldwide in terms of revenue and more importantly, profit. It depends on how narrowly you define "industry."