It may come as a surprise that the large-scale smart phone industry is actually about a decade-and-a-half old, and smartphones were originally mass produced for the Japanese market. In the US it is safe to define the smartphone revolution as we know it today – applications combined with a handheld touchscreen device – as having started with the launch of the iPhone in 2007.
Part of Steve Jobs’ legacy, Apple’s iPhone was unveiled to the public in one of Jobs’ signature black-sweater blue-jeans stage presentations and went on to reach a sales level of 1 million within 74 days of its release. The next version of the iPhone (iPhone 3G) came out in 2008 and reached the sales mark of 1 million in its opening weekend. The iPhone 4 reached a sales level of over 1.5 million during its opening weekend in 2010, while the iPhone4s saw over 1 million preorder sales as soon as it was unveiled. Today Apple continues to set sales records with products like the iPad.
Jobs and talented individuals at Apple brought the company from the brink of bankruptcy to hold the rank of being the world’s most valuable company. In 2010 the company’s worldwide revenue totaled $65 billion, nearly doubled that the next year, and in 2012 was calculated to be $156 billion. Most recently in 2014 Apple set a new record for itself, generating nearly $183 billion in sales.
Underlying this success are products like the iPhone. The launch and success of the iPhone series was not accidental. Apple had been diversifying its range of competitive services ever since Jobs had regained his position at the helm of the company in 1997. With the success of the iMac in 1998 – a personal computer that was released within the traditional purview of the company – Apple diversified its products and came out with the 2001 iPod, a revolutionary device in its own right. The development of the iPhone can be thought of as a natural evolution of Apple’s involvement with multimedia features, handheld devices, personal computers, and applications. What the company will unveil next remains a closely guarded secret.
From its intimidating position after the release of its series of iPhones, Apple has gradually lost ground in the smartphone industry to competitors like Samsung and Google. Today Androids and iPhones make up more than 90 percent of the smartphone and mobile device market, and recently Google’s Android operating system has topped Apple’s to grab the largest market share. The most current web browsing statistics reveal the following market shares for smartphone operating systems in the US, and globally Apple is even farther behind Android.:
- Apple’s iPhone series with the default iOS operating system – nearly 44 percent
- Google’s Android operating system, that is used on smartphones made by companies such as Samsung, Sony, and HTC – 47 percent market share
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