When Android stole the market
Even today, Apple scoops up a vast share of industry profits as its customers continue to invest in the best model iPhone they can afford. They do this because they continue to enjoy the user experience Apple provides.
But even back in 2007, Nokia saw that the exclusive US iPhone distribution relationship Apple reached with Cingular (later acquired by AT&T) was both a strength and a weakness. To compete, the industry was famously forced to rally round Google’s Android, an operating system Steve Jobs once vowed to destroy.
However, the embrace of Android proved ill-judged. It led the market into homogeneity, eternal price wars, and enabled Google, rather than the mobile device makers, to take the lion’s share of any services-related income. Apple did this too, of course — but Apple also took the risk of making and selling the hardware, software, and services used. Now, it sells one in every four smartphones, and perhaps almost one in five of those sold is now made in India.