Slides presented by Apple during a court hearing have leaked online and revealed the company's acknowledgement of not doing enough to meet with the demands of the consumers and carriers with respect to the competition.
Apple and Samsung have been in and out of court rooms over the last few years and other than financial revelations and the IP infringement blame game, there is not much that has come out of the hearings. However, the latest leaked set of slides, which include Apple's plans for the 2014 fiscal year, has revealed that Apple knows it might have to adapt faster to the constantly changing smartphone market to stay relevant.
The growth rate for Apple's iPhone sales has gone down dramatically after 2012 and has continued to depreciate over 2013 with no signs of improvement. Apple has listed out a few things which they believe are going against them and have played part in the iPhone losing traction.
One of the major factors which Apple has stressed twice is the lack of a large-screened inexpensive phone from the company. Large-screened smartphones priced below $300 are in great demand from the consumers, and other manufacturers have been successful in selling such products according to one of the slides. Other factors that have been slowing down iPhone adoption is the company's unfriendly policies for carriers and premium subsidy amounts.
Apart from the consumers and carriers, the competitors have evolved the software and hardware on their smartphones with many new features as well as flexibility across various price points. Clearly Apple does not have a short-term solution to tackle these issues as it recently relaunched its discontinued iPhone 4 in emerging markets and dropped the price of older generation iPads to counter cheap products from competitors. While we do not know what Apple's actual plans are, it is good to see that the company knows what it is lacking and not relying on just premium build quality promise.
Source and Images: Scribd
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