According to Eric Schmidt during an interview with Bloomberg, he said that Google currently holds most of the market share because they have a different strategy than Apple.
Apple is apparently more concerned with maximizing their total profits, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to most of us. After all, Android fans have been claiming that Apple charges more for less, in terms of features, for quite some time now.
Google is after something much different, which is clearly the majority of the market share. They’re willing to give away Android for free, in order to “make a bigger pie.”
Schmidt says:
“The core strategy is to make a bigger pie. We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems.”
Google’s plan is obviously working, as Android is expected to take about 70% of smartphone sales by next year, in addition to dominating most of the tablet market.
Schmidt also equates the rivalry between Android and Apple to the early stages of the Microsoft and Apple war.
“This is a huge platform change; this is of the scale of 20 years ago — Microsoft versus Apple. We’re winning that war pretty clearly now.”
These market statistics are so blinding, that some would even claim the war has been over for a while. If you remember correctly, Steve Jobs once said that he would bring a “thermonuclear war” to the Android platform, thus destroying it.
Well, looks like that didn’t happen Steve. I wonder if he’s rolling over in his grave right now?
You know what I find interesting, that Apple has been a part of both wide scale tech wars. It sounds like Apple has always been a tad bitter about their competition, no matter what market they are competing for.
In an earlier interview with the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt spoke about the relationship between the two companies and how it has changed in the past year. Things are less hostile now, which can possibly be attributed to Jobs being out of the picture. Schmidt says that now things are run in more of an “adult way,” which is the same way you run “a country.”
“I think both Tim [Cook, Apple’s CEO] and Larry [Page, Google’s CEO], the sort of successors to Steve [Jobs] and me if you will, have an understanding of this state model. When they and their teams meet, they have just a long list of things to talk about…”
That’s not to say that Apple is on its way down. Thanks to the recent release of the iPhone 5 they also saw an increase in their own market share this last few months. I’m fairly certain they will be around for a while, and you can bet this war isn’t over just yet.
Source: Bloomberg