With the recent dismissal of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, anything seems possible. Many smartphone manufacturers have been scrambling under tight competition to claim the crown of 2016’s “best smartphone”, a title which apparently belonged to the late Galaxy Note 7. While Google’s phones haven’t exactly been mainstream, the company went with a bang this year with a new “Pixel” branding for its smartphone lineup. According to a forecast by US banking firm Morgan Stanley, up to 9 million units of Pixel handsets will be sold when 2017 ends.
Morgan Stanley has reported that the company is expected to sell around 3 million units of its new smartphone lineup by the end of this year, and based on the prediction, Google is predicted to ship out a further 5 to 6 million units by the end of next year. While these figures sound impressive by the standards of Google’s sales numbers of its Nexus phones over the past couple of years, a comparison with Cupertino giant Apple tells a whole different story.
By contrast, Apple has sold a total of 212 million iPhones in the 2016 financial year, raking up a whopping $137 billion (RM611.22 billion) in revenue. In Q3 2016 alone, Apple has managed to ship 45.5 million iPhones, generating $28 billion (RM124.92 billion) in revenue. Assuming that Google hits 3 billion units of Pixel phones within Q4 2016, its revenue will pale in comparison at a tame $2 billion (RM8.92 billion).
Google’s lesser earnings are due to the fact that Pixel phones only generate 22 to 25 percent of gross profit margins. For reference and comparision, the Apple iPhone 7 has a 41.1 percent gross profit margin. Both series of phones belong to the premium pricing spectrum, but Apple has a seemingly more diehard and loyal fanbase compared to Google. What are your thoughts on these figures?
Source: The Business Insider
