MIR Show – John Strand of Strand Consult

By on February 17, 2009 in Uncategorized

We bumped into John Strand of Strand Consult just outside the Nokia stand. I am very pleased to be able to bring you his perspective on the show and the industry. Have a watch!


MIR MWC – John Strand from Mobile Industry Review on Vimeo.

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  • http://ymb.jaiku.com Mike Bradshaw

    not the easiest web site to navigate or find content on (http://www.strandconsult.dk/), any chance we could get some links from John on his predictions?

  • http://phonething.com Alex Kerr

    Seen John live at a number of shows, always talks sense.

    iPhone = 0.1% of all mobiles. Now we're talking. I love a hefty dose of reality :)

  • JP

    No the iPhone has 1.1% of the globalmarket share. (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/013009-ip…)
    And 17.3% of the global smartphone market (http://www.canalys.com/pr/2008/r2008112.htm).

    John Strand does not know what he is talking about

  • JP

    No the iPhone has 1.1% of the global marketshare.
    And 17.3% of the global smartphone marketshare

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  • http://whatleydude.vox.com James Whatley

    What an absurd point of view.

    How is market share anything to do with the iPhone App Store?!
    I am no Apple fanboy, by a long way. However the way they've got their how-ever-many-users-they-have ALL using and browsing their app store is something to behold.

    Have you seen the TV ad on how *EASY* it is to browse, purchase, download and open an iPhone app?
    It's *SO* powerful!

    Who gives a monkeys that Handango did this ten years ago, how easy was it for consumers then?
    And what? Opera browser? Tell me, how is your average normob going to find, purchase, download and open that bad boy on their Nokia?

    Christ… talk about missing the point.

    And that whole “They way to make clothes in this industry is to look at companies that make clothes for dwarves…”

    What?! Why is it interesting to look at the other 99.9%?? They're the ones that have been doing it wrong!

    I say it again what an utterly, utterly absurd point of view. Really.

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  • http://pedrofigueiredo.org/ pfig

    Sorry, this is a load of bull.

    Yeah, Apple might have only 1.1% of market share (let's ignore the fact John doesn't know about this number), but how much are they making from each sale (there's a proper marketing term for this, return per customer or something, I haven't brushed up on my marketing speak in a long time)?

    It's the whole “Apple is doomed because they only have 4% of the computer market” mistake all over again, will people never learn? While Dell and others were fighting for single digit % profits on each machine, Apple was raking in above 30%.

    Also of note are James Whatley's comments about the ease of use and experience of the Apple App Store, further up this thread.

    One last point, it's good that everyone's (trying to) jump on the App Store bandwagon, it'll show the telcos they're just like the water company, we just need their pipes.

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  • sos100

    That is a total and utterly stupid analogy: “making clothes for dwarves”. Oh my God. he sounds like the old mainframe companies explaining how we'd never need all those PCs and anyway they couldn't do “the hard stuff that businesses really want”.

    The mobile industry (I know that's a massive generalisation) is very out of touch with changes taking place around them. Exceptions might include Three, BT/Ribbit, and maybe even some parts of Nokia.

    “a paradigm shift in the browser industry” – shoot me in the face place, and make it stop!!!

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  • Mike42

    Dear god.

    Who gives this guy money? Seriously?

    Every person with an iPhone is a walking end-user education unit. They are shifting expectations, one friend / colleague / relative at a time. The focus is on Apple because the UE combo of device+store is faultless, not because of their share. Apple will never have large share. They are a premium, aspirational brand.

    Handango devices + store was crap. If Nokia et al can copy Apple and deliver the same experience without being sued out of existence we will have a beautiful thing.

    His advice to firms appears to be 'don't focus on Apple / the Apple UE because they have a tiny share and therefore are wrong'. No, stick to your guns. The industry's fine. Customers love us. There's no more money to be made.

    Really.

  • rafeblandford

    Stats can tell you anything you want to hear… He actually said 0.1% of all mobile phones, not mobile phones sold in the last year. There's a big difference. IPhone sales of 17 million or so versus 4 billion mobile connections (active phones). Depending on what you count (inactive iPhones / phones, people using multiple phones off one connection etc. you'll get around 0.2 – 0.4%. Though personally I'd be looking at 1% market share and whether this is sustainable for Apple. Looking at a macro level isn't helpful in some ways as it hides the vast differences between different markets / segments etc.

    Yes the reason the Apple app store did so well was the ease of use and, perhaps, Apple very intelligently leveraging their existing Apple developer base.

    The reason its interesting to look at the 99.whatever % is a question of scale. Its a perfectly valid model to make money by only going after the high end (Apple), but the companies that dominate industries tend to be those that go after the whole market (Nokia, Samsung etc). That said I think this is a bit mis-representative. Are mid tier users going to ever use an app store (at all? to the same extent as high end?)…

    I suspect some the debate here may because by context / time scale (e.g. developing markets, US vs Europe, high end vs low end, age etc etc). Also time index – if we look at right now we see one thing, but looking to the future (which is more difficult) is probably more useful. Look at the whole market mobile Internet is going to be (and already is) far more important than third party apps. That's why innovation in this area is worth looking at.

    BTW I'm in the middle ground here (i.e. App Store is something different because it was sucessful (validation), but everyone can learn from it, and it's a differentiator with low copy barriers – it can be replicated – and scale/discover-ability is going to be key as app stores proliferate), but thought I put in a few points.

  • j_norris

    I think the point is that while Apple only occupy 0.1% of all phones (and I'd like to see real stats), most phones being used aren't even suitable for basic offline J2me MIDP2 applications, that statistic is fairly un-interesing.

    So Apple have created a handset which technically goes beyond the capabilities of all other handsets, is dis-proportionally popular, and a brilliant application eco-system to support it. So focussing on them seems to be a fairly good benchmark.

    Plus I point at what James Watley talks about with the whole eco-system of the Apple store, there's nothing else even close to that kind of usability & accessibility (which they've partially achieved by ditching the stagnating Java framework Motorola are struggling to push/update).

    James (Twitter j_norris)

  • Gayle

    The market share argument is Strand grasping at straws. What about Tag Heuer, BMW,
    Tiffany’s….. the list goes on and on with regards presitige outfits providing enviable
    service and innovation to select markets looking for excellence and exceptional after
    sale care.

    I’m a long-time Nokia user and I’d love a Nokia app store!!!

    Gayle (from Australia)

  • Gayle

    The market share argument is Strand grasping at straws. What about Tag Heuer, BMW,
    Tiffany’s….. the list goes on and on with regards presitige outfits providing enviable
    service and innovation to select markets looking for excellence and exceptional after
    sale care.

    I’m a long-time Nokia user and I’d love a Nokia app store!!!

    Gayle (from Australia)

  • Joe Cooper

    The iPhone is a bit like Paris Hilton. It’s easy.
    John is certainly an amusing chap.

    I was a Nokia fanboy until my situation (living in Japan) made buying an iPhone the obvious choice. Last time I used my N73 it felt clunky. The reason I liked Nokia so much was the brilliantly usable interface. Apple have gone one better, right now. The hardware still lacks beef though.

    I’m not sure what this guy’s point is about app stores. The iPhone app store is brilliant, and definitely one of my favourite things about the iPhone. I was going to a class recently, and forgot to bring a stopwatch. I managed to install a free stopwatch app on my phone while walking from the staff room to the class room. Perfect. Apple aren’t market leaders, but they are doing lots of things right.

  • Anonymous
  • Anonymous
  • Jon F (Twittr jonfisheruk)

    Its ARPU, average revenue per user, and apple is showing how they can move the billing relationship from these products to them rather than the operators.

    They are shaping the market because they have a relationship with there customers. Nokia Ovi anyone else trying to do the same thing?

    interesting point is that apps are repeat sales, as the usage of each on decreases over time. Therefore purchases become more often increasing ARPU as apps are disgarded and new ones sort. And that APRU is back to apple not the operator!!!
    http://www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/iphone-app…

    Also has anyone else done more to make the man on the street feel that using the internet on a mobile is “safe” to do so?

  • South77

    Agree with @whatleyguy

    Handango was awful. Big lolz.

    I heart appl (not really).

  • Jesper

    John Strand is wellknown in Denmark for his singlesided comments.. He simply does not understand Apple and hate the iPhone..

    He does not understand that the iPhone has revolutionized the industri..

    ..a socalled expert! Amazing.

  • http://nicolaj.com Budweis
  • http://nicolaj.com Budweis

    http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090804/iph…

    “Our analysis indicates that Apple’s iPhone accounted for only 8% of handset industry revenues but 32% of industry operating profits in 1H09,” Sacconaghi wrote in a note to clients today. “Even if we exclude the operating losses generated by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, Apple still accounted for 25% of industry profits. iPhone’s success is akin to Apple’s position in the PC industry–where the company enjoys an estimated 25% of industry profits, despite capturing only 6% of industry revenues.”

  • http://nicolaj.com Budweis

    http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090804/iph…

    “Our analysis indicates that Apple’s iPhone accounted for only 8% of handset industry revenues but 32% of industry operating profits in 1H09,” Sacconaghi wrote in a note to clients today. “Even if we exclude the operating losses generated by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, Apple still accounted for 25% of industry profits. iPhone’s success is akin to Apple’s position in the PC industry–where the company enjoys an estimated 25% of industry profits, despite capturing only 6% of industry revenues.”

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