This is a talk I gave today at Aalto University. It’s a wide ranging talk and Q&A session lasting about 2 hours.
You can listen and see the visuals using the Perspective app on your iPad. Download the app (free from the App Store if you don’t already have it) and open the link below using the iPad.
On October 5th, 2011 I asked Why is there no iPhone 5? The question was prompted by the pervasive media surprise that the 2011 iPhone launch was the “4S” and not a completely new design.
I answered this question with the conclusion that an iPhone “5” in 2011 would over-serve the market by offering more than most buyers would be looking for. That was because there could only be three groups of users the iPhone 4S would need to target: existing iPhone users, smartphone non-consumers and non-iPhone smartphone users. The majority of iPhone users in late 2011 who would be willing to upgrade were iPhone 3 or 3GS users and for them the 4S would be a huge improvement. Non-consumers would find the 4S attractive, as they would any iPhone; and existing smartphone users (mainly Android) would still be in their first contract and not likely to be looking to upgrade. Given the conditions at the time, the 4S was an adequate fit with customer expectations.
I wrote “The question will be very different a year from now when most early Android buyers will be looking for a new phone and when most iPhone 4 users (all 70 million of them) will be looking for a new iPhone. That would seem like a good time to introduce a new iPhone ‘5’.”
It is now a year hence and we can consider how these same three targeted user groups see the new iPhone:
Read the rest of the post here: Why iPhone 5? | LinkedIn.
(Note: you can also follow me on LinkedIn now).
Quarterly financial data is often a lagging indicator of strategic success. RIM’s vital signs were exceptionally strong up until early 2011. Consider the following graph showing RIM’s device growth.
Using language commonly heard among analysts, one would say that the company was “reverting to the mean” and growing nearly in-line with the market. In other words, exceptional growth was over but continuing growth was likely. The company was returning to something “normal.”
However, keen observers of the market would have been hard pressed to find any reason for justifying that performance. Seen through a disruptive lens, it was evident as early as 2008 that RIM’s strategy was not sustainable. The company had a very weak smartphone product relative to emergent iOS and Android ecosystems. And yet, the company continued to prosper for nearly three years, through 2008, 2009 and 2010. Those shorting the stock during this period would have been unrewarded.
But then in early 2011 it fell off a cliff. Continue reading “Reverting to the mean”
James Allworth, Harvard Business School Forum for Growth and Innovation fellow and co-author of How Will You Measure Your Life joins Horace for an in-depth discussion of the vulnerability of Apple to low-end disruption. Specifically, assuming the iPhone reaches a point of over-service, did Apple arm its suppliers with the means to create its replacement? We dip into case studies of Dell, HP, HTC and Microsoft and touch on how iPod escaped this fate.
via 5by5 | The Critical Path #56: Strategic Disadvantages: A discussion with James Allworth.
Tim Cook is quoted as having said the inventory is not only evil but that it’s fundamentally evil.
With just-in-time production inventory can be reduced, at least work-in-progress inventory. Unfortunately inventory cannot be completely eliminated. The fact remains that you sometimes need to stockpile product for launch and need to have some on hand depending which way it’s sold. There is also substantial channel inventory (which is off Apple’s books but still evil) that needs to be in the hands of distributors.
Tight inventory management has become a characteristic of Apple and that contributes to getting ranked number one in Supply Chain Management. So we can expect that Apple runs a tight ship. In fact we have evidence of this through the ability to track our purchases from when they ship out of a factory in China all the way to our homes.
This tracking in itself shows that when product is in high demand production is initiated on direct consumer orders not just in response to maintaining a level of inventory. So with that in mind, we can revisit the question of how many iPhones 5 the company has produced.
First, we need to step back and recall the method for analyzing production. I built a model which attempts to show what a typical production run for an iPhone model would look like. I first published the process in early 2011. It used the historic data from iPhone 1, 3G and 3GS to try to predict iPhone 4 production. I’ve updated the model to show what that would look like today.
The assumptions driving the model are: Continue reading “On how not to be evil”
When Apple announced five million iPhone 5 were sold to end users over its launch weekend, I was surprised. Not because my guess had been around 6 million, but because the company had set expectations by announcing a doubling of pre-orders from the year-ago 4S launch.
Instead of doubling its performance for the launch weekend the company only sold 25% more units. How can there be this discrepancy? Is this a sign that demand is not growing at the rate we’ve become accustomed to? Is it a sign that there are shortages of components or labor or other production problems?
No, probably none of the above.
What we saw in the 5 million figure is what the company was able to deliver in the hands of buyers. It’s possible that there were people who did not get a phone when they wanted it, and at the same time it’s possible that some phones were available for sale and did not get bought.
This is because Apple offers the product through multiple channels. Some channels like Apple Stores may have gotten too many units while other channels like their on-line store, operator stores or retail partners did not get enough.
In other words, we have a situation of over- and under-supply (or over- and under-demand) simultaneously because the product is misallocated.
Can this really happen?
Horace and Moisés discuss the early consumer response to iOS 6 (Maps in particular), and how people appear to greatly prefer native apps to their web app counterparts. They also dig into just how large an opportunity cost Apple is capable of absorbing in the interest of protecting their platform. In doing so, they examine the native app vs. HTML5 debate.
As the chart below shows, the last quarter (second calendar 2012, third fiscal 2012) was disappointingly moderate with 20% earnings growth and 23% net sales growth.
Continue reading “Estimates for Apple's fourth fiscal 2012 quarter [Updated]”
Jenn Webb of O’Reilly writes:
With its recent release of the new Kindle Fire HD tablets, some have argued that Amazon has declared war on Apple and its iPad. But how serious is the threat? Are the two companies even playing the same game? I reached out to analyst Horace Dediu, founder and author of Asymco, to get his take. Dediu will speak on all this and more at TOC Frankfurt on October 9, 2012. Our short interview follows.
read the interview here: Kindle Fire vs iPad: “Good enough” will not disrupt – Tools of Change for Publishing. (O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing).
Matteo Fumagalli is a student of economics at University of Insubria, Italy. He is writing a thesis for a bachelor’s degree analyzing the smartphone industry.
He asked me to answer the following questions:
-First question is about you. Why did you found Asymco?
I founded the company to develop software, mainly apps. I began writing the blog as a way to drive traffic to the site. I would have preferred to build a blog only but did not think it was possible to earn any money doing that so I treated it as a hobby. Even after the site became more visible I changed from development to consulting and did not expect that writing in itself could be self-sustaining. It took about two years before I felt comfortable with the idea that I could do writing and speaking exclusively. I am still exploring additional business models however.
-You worked 8 years as analyst and business development manager at Nokia and you anticipated their current crisis with your first post on Asymco. Do you think Nokia will have the chance to recuperate, and eventually what will be the role of Windows Phone?
Nokia may recover or remain independent, at least. But it will be far smaller. The idea of a return to dominance or 40% share seems very unlikely. As I pointed out in the first post, the organization cannot cope with the new marketplace. Large organizations require extreme stress and damage to change. It’s a phenomenon at all levels of society that success results in rigidity. From the individual to the nation to the civilization, success makes change very, very difficult.
Windows Phone is an attempt to create a third ecosystem. I am concerned that the logic of having a third alternative is not solving a consumer need but an operator need. In other words, consumers are not asking for a third option and when they are presented with a third option they are not excited by it. The consumer does not think in terms of increasing their options. They decide once every two years which phone to buy and that is the end of their thinking on the subject. By focusing on the operator’s needs the platform is fundamentally mis-positioned.
What Windows Phone needs to be positioned as is either as fundamentally different, solving a different job for the consumer. Or fundamentally better along a new dimension like price or convenience. These are some of the claims it makes but they are very weak claims right now.
-What about RIM, other company which is going through difficult times? What do you think about their decision not to move to Android and stake everything on their closed OS? Continue reading “An interview with Matteo Fumagalli”
Asymmetric Competition