Can Google or Huawei stymie Apple’s march towards $4trn?

The contest for global smartphone dominance gets interesting
全球智能手机主导地位之争变得有趣

2024年10月24日 05:34 上午

TO CALL APPLE a corporate behemoth is to be uncharitable. It is much bigger than that. On many financial measures it makes more sense to compare the iPhone-maker not with other companies but with stockmarket indices—and not some obscure ones, either. Exclude financial firms and India’s Nifty 50 sit on less cash. When Apple reports its annual results on October 31st analysts reckon its net profit will be just below what Germany’s DAX blue chips raked in last year. On October 21st its market capitalisation nudged $3.6trn, more than Hong Kong’s Hang Seng.

将苹果称为企业巨头是不仁慈的。它比那大得多。在许多财务指标上，将 iPhone 制造商与股票市场指数而不是与其他公司进行比较更有意义，而不是与一些晦涩难懂的指数进行比较。排除金融公司和印度 Nifty 50 企业的现金较少。当苹果公司 10 月 31 日公布年度业绩时，分析师预计其净利润将略低于去年德国 DAX 蓝筹股的净利润。10 月 21 日，其市值微升 3.6 万亿美元，超过香港恒生指数。

Rivals in Apple’s core smartphone market look puny next to the colossus of Cupertino. Samsung, a down-on-its-luck South Korean electronics conglomerate which sells more handsets globally than any other firm, is worth one-thirteenth as much, despite also boasting a huge semiconductor business. Xiaomi, a Chinese challenger whose devices outsold iPhones in August, generates less than 5% of Apple’s gross profit. The average iPhone sells for $900, compared with $300 for a Samsung and half that for a Xiaomi. Google, a Silicon Valley neighbour with a tidy digital-ad operation and growing hardware ambitions, shifted $5bn-worth of Pixel phones in 2023—which against a $200bn screen of iPhone sales looks, well, like a pixel. Competition? What competition?

苹果核心智能手机市场的竞争对手与库比蒂诺巨头相比显得微不足道。三星是一家运气不佳的韩国电子企业集团，其全球手机销量比任何其他公司都多，尽管它也拥有庞大的半导体业务，但其市值仅为其十分之一。小米是中国的挑战者，其设备在 8 月份的销量超过了 iPhone，其毛利润占苹果公司毛利润的比例不到 5%。iPhone 的平均售价为 900 美元，而三星手机的平均售价为 300 美元，小米手机的平均售价为一半。谷歌是硅谷的邻居，拥有整洁的数字广告业务和不断增长的硬件野心，它在 2023 年转移了价值 50 亿美元的 Pixel 手机——与 iPhone 销售额 2000 亿美元的屏幕相比，它看起来就像是 Pixel。竞赛？什么比赛？

Going by Wall Street analysts’ targets for Apple’s share price, it seems nothing can stand in the way of its triumphant march towards $4trn. Still, the iPhone’s everlasting presence in the world’s deepest pockets cannot be taken for granted. In many ways, its position appears less certain than it has been in years.

从华尔街分析师对苹果股价的目标来看，似乎没有什么可以阻止其向 4 万亿美元的胜利进军。尽管如此，iPhone 永远占据世界最富裕阶层的地位也不能被视为理所当然。在许多方面，它的地位似乎不像多年来那样确定。

The iPhone looks the most unassailable in its home market. Nearly half of all Americans aged 12 or more own one. And many of those who do not would like to, given how powerful a marker of status the Apple logo has become. If you are under the age of 20, “you either have an iPhone or blame your parents,” sums up Runar Bjorhovde of Canalys, a research firm.

iPhone在国内市场（美国）看起来是最无懈可击的。12 岁或以上的美国人中近一半拥有一台。考虑到苹果标志已经成为多么强大的地位标志，许多人不愿意这样做。研究公司 Canalys 的鲁纳尔·比约霍夫德 (Runar Bjorhovde) 总结道，如果你还不到 20 岁，“你要么拥有 iPhone，要么责怪你的父母”。

A big wrinkle is that America’s smartphone market is shrinking. Americans bought some 124m new handsets in 2023, according to Counterpoint, another research firm, down from 174m six years earlier. Now the strategy of grabbing a bigger slice of a shrinking American pie may have run its course. Apple’s domestic sales peaked in 2021, at 77m. Last year it shipped 70m.

一个大问题是美国智能手机市场正在萎缩。另一家研究公司 Counterpoint 的数据显示，2023 年美国人购买了约 1.24 亿部新手机，低于六年前的 1.74 亿部。现在，从日益缩小的美国蛋糕中分得更大份额的战略可能已经走到了尽头。苹果美国销量在 2021 年达到顶峰，达到 7700 万部。去年出货量为7000万。

Samsung has long craved a bite out of Apple’s business. Its latest high-end phones were early to use Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance search, photo-editing and other tasks. Gemini, whose co-creator just shared a Nobel prize, slots in neatly with the Android operating system, also designed by Google and made available to Samsung and others on an open-source basis. But not as neatly as it does in Google’s own Pixels, which integrate Gemini not just with Android but also with its custom-made mobile chips. Apple has historically relied on a similar fusion of hardware and its operating system, iOS. But it has largely eschewed AI model-making and, in a departure from its habitual control-freakery, has chosen instead to rely on outside help for a critical technology. Apple Intelligence, an AI assistant which it will begin rolling out within days courtesy of OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, thus risks offering a choppier user experience than Pixels do.

三星长期以来一直渴望从苹果的业务中分一杯羹。其最新的高端手机很早就使用了谷歌的Gemini人工智能（AI）来增强搜索、照片编辑和其他任务。Gemini 的联合创始人刚刚获得了诺贝尔奖，它与 Android 操作系统完美契合，Android 操作系统也是由谷歌设计的，并以开源方式提供给三星和其他公司。但并不像谷歌自己的 Pixel 那样巧妙，后者不仅将 Gemini 与 Android 集成，还与其定制的移动芯片集成。苹果历来都依赖于硬件与其操作系统 iOS 的类似融合。但它在很大程度上避开了人工智能模型制作，并且一反其习惯性的控制狂，而是选择依赖外部帮助来获取关键技术。Apple Intelligence 是一款人工智能助手，它将在 ChatGPT 的创建者 OpenAI 的帮助下于几天内开始推出，因此存在提供比 Pixel 更不稳定的用户体验的风险。

Apple faces even more trouble in China. Its second-largest market is likewise in secular decline, but much more fiercely competitive. No smartphone brand in China exceeds 18% of unit sales. Five local ones—Oppo, Vivo, Honor, Huawei and Xiaomi—plus Apple each chalk up at least 14%. On October 22nd the American firm’s chief executive, Tim Cook, unexpectedly popped up in Beijing for the second time this year—possibly in an effort to shake up what Horace Dediu, a veteran Apple-watcher, calls the Chinese market’s “steady state”.

苹果在中国面临着更多的麻烦。它的第二大市场同样在长期衰退中，但竞争更加激烈。中国没有一个智能手机品牌销量超过 18%。Oppo、Vivo、荣耀、华为和小米这五家本土企业加上苹果各占至少 14%。10 月 22 日，这家美国公司的首席执行官蒂姆·库克 (Tim Cook) 出人意料地今年第二次出现在北京，可能是为了打破资深苹果观察家霍勒斯·德迪乌 (Horace Dediu) 所说的中国市场的“稳定状态”。

If so, Mr Cook had better get jiggling. According to a recent survey by Canalys, Chinese consumers are keener than Westerners on AI capabilities, which local rivals have been quick to offer. Apple, meanwhile, still has no launch date for a Chinese-language Apple Intelligence. The ultra-high-resolution cameras that Apple shuns are a selling point for homespun rivals in a selfie-obsessed nation. So is their Chineseness: patriotic consumption has helped Huawei, which America has tried to smother with sanctions since 2019, stage a remarkable comeback. It recently overtook Apple’s shipments in China for the first time in three years. Chinese devices, which use a greater portion of cheap but high-quality Chinese components than iPhones do, offer better value for money, says Yang Wang of Counterpoint. At a time of sour consumer sentiment, that matters.

如果是这样，库克先生最好动摇一下。Canalys 最近的一项调查显示，中国消费者比西方消费者更热衷于人工智能功能，而本土竞争对手已迅速提供这些功能。与此同时，苹果公司仍然没有推出中文Apple Intelligence的日期。苹果公司回避的超高分辨率相机对于这个痴迷于自拍的国家的朴素竞争对手来说是一个卖点。他们的中国特色也是如此：爱国消费帮助华为实现了惊人的卷土重来，美国自 2019 年以来一直试图通过制裁来压制华为。最近，它在中国的出货量三年来首次超过了苹果。Counterpoint 的 Yang Wang 表示，与 iPhone 相比，中国设备更多地使用廉价但优质的中国零部件，因此物有所值。在消费者情绪低迷的时候，这一点很重要。

Beyond Pax Cupertina

超越库比蒂纳和平

In parts of the world where smartphone sales are still growing apace, Apple has a different problem—its pricey iPhones are almost nowhere to be seen. Transsion’s cut-price devices reign supreme in Africa. In India, where Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi together account for two-thirds of handsets sold, Apple’s share languishes at 5%. It is possible that as their disposable incomes rise, phone-buyers in the global south will, like many Chinese before them, opt for higher-end offerings from their current suppliers, rather than hurrying to buy an iPhone.

在世界上智能手机销量仍在快速增长的地区，苹果公司面临着不同的问题——其昂贵的 iPhone 几乎不见踪影。传音的低价设备在非洲占据主导地位。在印度，Oppo、Vivo 和小米合计占印度手机销量的三分之二，而苹果的份额则徘徊在 5%。随着可支配收入的增加，南半球的手机购买者可能会像之前的许多中国人一样，选择当前供应商提供的高端产品，而不是急于购买 iPhone。

Apple may console itself by arguing that these problems look trifling today. The world’s 1.5bn iPhone-users represent the wealthiest one-fifth of humanity. Many happily lock themselves in the iOS walled orchard, where Apple sells them high-margin services from cloud storage to streaming and, soon, AI. Apple Intelligence may be a compromise worth making, given OpenAI’s machine-learning chops. And Mr Cook is pushing into India, tomorrow’s biggest prize. Still, Apple must not forget that dominant doesn’t mean indomitable. ■

苹果可能会安慰自己说，这些问题在今天看来微不足道。全球 15 亿 iPhone 用户代表了人类最富有的五分之一。许多人高兴地将自己锁在 iOS 围墙果园里，苹果向他们出售从云存储到流媒体以及即将推出的人工智能等高利润服务。考虑到 OpenAI 的机器学习能力，Apple Intelligence 可能是一个值得做出的妥协。库克正在进军印度，这是明天最大的战利品。不过，苹果绝不能忘记，占据主导地位并不意味着坚不可摧。■