It would not be surprising to know that Apple’s revenue during the fourth quarter is around $ 20 Billion and has managed to give them around $ 4 Billion in profits. Its revenue is basically a combination of the sales of the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Macs with the iPhone being the major contributor.
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has made a surprise appearance during the conference call where the company’s earnings were reported. Steve Jobs rarely make appearances like this and most of the time leaves Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer to take charge. In the said conference call, Steve jobs did not only answer question from analysts, but also gave his thoughts on Apple’s competitors in the smartphone and the tablet market as well.
The toughest competitor of Apple at present is Google, which is the company behind the Android OS and RIM, the maker of BlackBerry. Steve Jobs believed that Google and RIM must be facing a challenge given the fact that Apple has outsold most of its products in the last quarter. He also discussed the difficulties that Apple went into given such competitors.
During the said conference call, Steve Jobs specifically mentioned that Apple has sold 2 million more iPhones last quarter than what RIM has sold with its BlackBerry. But as far as Google is concern, Steve Jobs has not given any word. It seems that he strongly recognized the fact that Google’s Android is its toughest competitor at present especially nowadays that more smartphone manufacturers are using the Android OS in their newly-released smartphone models.
However, Steve Jobs criticized the way Google calls its system being an “open system” and Apple being some sort of a “closed system.” and strongly stated that “open system don’t always win.” He believes that when it comes to overall customer experience, a “closed” approach has a definite advantage. (More details can be heard in the audio clip below)
Steve Jobs has also given his taught on Apple’s competitors that are trying to take some market shares from its very popular tablet- iPad. He classified the competition happening in the tablet market as more of “a handful credible entrants and not exactly an avalanche.” He also criticized the choice of most of Apple’s iPad competitors to come up with 7-inch tablet by saying that a 10-inch screen is just perfect for a tablet’s screen to give a good user experience and anything below this size only means making elements too close together and less easy to target.
Well, it seems that Steve Jobs surprise appearance has made the conference call even more interesting and exciting. It clearly shows that Apple’s strategy is really different as compared with its competitor, no wonder Apple has made such revenue in the fourth quarter. Let us just wait and see if this strategy will continue to let Apple stay to where it is for a longer time.
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Tags: apple q4 earnings, steve jobs rant google android, steve jobs vs google android
