This blog contains posts and comments written by students in Dr. Tufte's economics classes at Southern Utah University.
11/30/2010
Google’s Android Beats Out Apple in U.S.
Apple has the App Store, Google now has the Android Market. Apple has been a hit this past decade in the music, movie, and communication industries. Apple’s iPhone has been untouchable since the inception of hot applications that allow one to do a variety of uses from tracking favorite sports teams, checking weather/stocks/bank accounts, using a helpful flash light, a tip calculator, or thousands of other useful and/or pointless applications. Google has wised up to this act and has created their own platform with many of these same awesome/useful/sometimes pointless applications and made it even more available by using more cellphone providers than just one. Verizon has landed the newest Google phone, the Android, which according to an article in August of the Bloomberg Businessweek titled Google’s Android Passes Apple Among New U.S. Users, has been able to outperform Apple in sales for the very first time. Thanks to this new platform called “the market” the Android System is finally able to rival and marginalize the almighty Apple. The article points out that the Android will not only succeed in the U.S., but hope to capture the global market share from Apple stating that “Android’s U.S. success may mean Google will overtake Apple’s iOS globally earlier than previously expected.” Might as well go get one now!
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3 comments:
The iPhone is a good example of a contestable market. When introduced, the iPhone made Apple capable of charging far above marginal cost. This motivated potential entrants into the market. Now we have them, and Apple is losing market share and some of its good reputation.
According to Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-free-vs-paid-apps-2010-8), the Android Market provides 35% more free apps then the App Store. But 70% of Apple users are more likely to pay for apps verses only roughly 35% of Android users. This can demonstrate the quality gap between the two products. But this could also cause a problem in the future with Android if they ever need to sell apps to generate revenue.
What really amazes economists is Apple's ability to get people to pay for things that they can get for free (or cheap) elsewhere. We don't have a decent way to measure it, but it really seems like people feel like they are buying admission to a club when they buy Apple products.
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