The media really, really, really loves to write about Apple and the iPhone these days. It reminds me of Google in 2004, when the media fell in love with the concept of search.
Besides the antennae story, which I find hopelessly over reported, the latest iPhone rhapsody has been how many iPhone 4s Apple has sold – apparently, 3 million as of last Friday. Friday was July 16th. The iPhone 4 launched on June 24, so that’d be 23 days to reach the 3 million mark.
3 million phones in 23 days – that’s a pretty strong clip, the fastest sales of an Apple phone to date, Mashable reports. If I do the math, that’s more than 130,000 phones a day.
But did anyone in the press notice Google’s little announcement, the day before Apple launched its iPhone 4? This one? The one where Google said, and I quote:
“Every day 160,000 Android-powered devices are activated — that’s nearly two devices every second.”
Yep, that’d be 30K MORE phones a day than Apple. And my guess is that Android’s pace is accelerating, while the iPhone 4 is probably sliding downward, given how many folks bought it at launch (Mashable reports that 1.7 million were sold in first three days, so 1.3 million the next 20 days). In fact, if you do THAT math, and divide 1.3 million by 20 days, you get 65,000 iPhone 4s sold each day, which is nearly 100,000 less, PER DAY, than Android phones.
Is that story anywhere in the press? Not that I see.
As far as I can tell, Android-based phones will far outnumber any other smart phone by year’s end. Apple, meet your new Windows. It’s name is Android.
So what.
It is on hundreds of different phones so of course it is going to be more. Additionally, I believe that it is open source mobile OS, so ‘revenue’ generated by licensing this to the cell phone manufacturers, I believe, is non existent
So that in and of itself makes it different then the Mac vs PC war in the traditional PC market. However to add to it while there are multiple computer manufacturers that supply Windows and there is only 1 that supplies OSX, Windows gets a cut of each install and Google does not. (Unless I am wrong on this)
I agree with Adam, I was going to comment the same thing. Unless I am missing something, Google is not generating any revenue from Android.
Hi John,
Thought I’d point out a few of the stories below:
Android Now Outselling iPhone [REPORT]
http://mashable.com/2010/05/10/android-outselling-iphone/
Android Gains Market Share On All Other Smartphone Platforms [REPORT]
http://mashable.com/2010/07/09/android-comscore-2010/
Remember that there are a number of phones for the Android platform, but only one iPhone.
Nevertheless you make a good point, the spotlight is all on Apple.
Lauren.
“Is that story anywhere in the press”
Yes. All over the place. Let me Google that for you:
http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&q=android+160+a+day+2+second+-archos&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&gs_upl=3802,2218,6,0,73,92,6
OK, the iPhone antenna thing is over-reported, but it’s not like people are ignoring Android.
Thanks Lauren, and Moil4gold49. You’re right, it’s out there, but it’s buried in Apple coverage. I’d wager the perception is that iPhone has way more market share than it actually does.
Go back to school or take business classes. The reason apple gets all this attention is because they are one company producing this thing, with much higher stock and organization. This isn’t news because Apple has never intended to have its OS on other systems. They market their own devices + OS. You’re argument is like talking about how many PC’s with Windows or Linux there are out there compared to Apple computers. Apples iPhone sales were very impressive for one company’s device. There are 25+ campanies producing their own devices (HTC, Samsung, Motorola, and tons more) each with their own stock and income. Apple doesnt want any of these manufacturers to use iOS4, so there is no battle being lost. In other words, the competition is how many units are sold by a single company, not which devices use what OS. The fact that a company will rise up and not use Android when all the others are, is a much bigger story.
Nice try though on coming up with your own news piece.
I’m back to criticize the top two comments, i.e. “So what?”
John has missed the extensive coverage of Android’s rise to 160k units per day. However, he is bang on that this is very important.
You all point out that it is “spread over multiple devices”. Well…yeah. Duh. That was the strategy behind Android and an open OS with a FREE licensing model. Of course, Google wasn’t expecting to beat Apple with the Nexus One. Google is expecting to enable a host of OEMs to do the front line fighting for them.
So, yes, Apple beats Google hands-down when it comes to profits from the hardware.
But when has hardware ever been the competitive differentiator for long? Hardware is rapidly commoditized. Remember the PC world? But owning the OS and associated services is long-term sustainable revenue, and brand awareness. Anyone heard of MSFT?
MSFT doesn’t make the majority of their money from the Windows OS. They make it from Office! The notion is that if a company, say Google, controls the most popular OS, they will be able to make money from associated products and services. I’m gonna make a crazy guess here, and speculate that Google hopes to make money from advertising on the mobile devices. More phones with Android = more money.
So, Apple is not ‘losing’ per se, but is being overshadowed by an increasingly functional, increasingly competitive OS which is offered on a wide range of hardware platforms, across geographies, from various no-name, and big name hardware brands. The Android phones are often cheaper than Apple, and have already exerted significant price pressure on Apple.
I’d say Android’s advance is wildly significant to Apple and the whole industry. So what, indeed!
@Bt – actually, you are missing a very key point. This is about a platform war, mainly open (Android) vs. mainly closed (Apple). And in that battle, gross numbers matter, A LOT. WHo will develop what features of the ecosystem, and based on what incentives? That’s what is at stake here.
John, keep in mind that you’re comparing iPhon4 only, US only.
I guess some people are still buying older version of iphone (specially withe antenna issue).
And international sales for the haven’t started yet.
I guess the Android numbers are world wide…
Anyway, I believe that Android has, or will soon, outpaced iPhone.
@bt
Have you heard about network effects and bi-lateral platforms? you might want to check the latest business courses!
Devices are important for Motorola, Samsung, HTC, etc…
But developers care about the OS! So number of OSs (not devices) is important for Android users/developers, Google, and also for Motorola, Samsung, HTC, etc…
John – the only problem here is you are comparing oranges and “apples”.
The quote for Android said “160K Android-powerws devices activated”.
You compared that directly to the iPhone4 wales numbers. Last I checked the iPad was powered by the same OS and the 3GS is still selling reasonably well at a greatly reduced price. Plus sales are not necessarily activations – many people upgraded their handsets.
There is also a very active secondary market for used iPhones. I haven’t seen the same (yet) for Android devices. So this secondary market may allow for Apple sales to almost equal total new activations as well.
That 30K differential in new activations doesn’t seem so big if you think it through and may actually be in Apple’s favour. With Apple making a lot more money per activation at this point.
I think its great Google is making this a legit fight but they are depleting their coffers in this battle right now while Apple is filling theirs up. MSFT has lost this type of battle several times now…
Nice post but I think you are missing something. The international roll-out of iPhone 4 hasn’t happened yet. The Mashable page linked above says that the international rollout of iPhone 4 won’t happen till July 30 (with completion in September). It will be interesting to see how 4th Quarter shipments pan out.
John, would you also like to add up the sale of iPads and iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G to the count? Since the count of Android activations is about “devices”, iOS devices also need to be added up together. Except, Apple ain’t telling you anything just yet – you gotta wait until tomorrow night, won’t you?
And your math is the sale of iPhone 4 just out of the US, whereas Android is not qualified.
Even though it might just be about another Apple-Windows kinda thing that lots of folks like to talk about, perhaps it is a tad too early to break open the bubbly, eh?
1) Ipod Touch? See any discussion of IOS v. Android always leaves out the Ipod Touch – there are tens of millions of them
2) Money – Close to 57% of all android apps are free, so where are devs going to go to make money – IOS or Android.
3) Network Effects – There are over 100 Million IOS devices – with an army of Android OEM’s how many devices are out there ALREADY???
Android might be the future but wake me up when they pass 100 Million uers
Many of you make good points – there are millions upon millions of devices in the iOS ecosystem. As to how developers will get paid on Android, there will be many ways, more I’d suspect than on iOS due to Apple’s more restrictive policies. My point was simply that at the moment, Android is growing faster than the current iPhone 4. I think all indications are that it will outstrip all of iOS in short order – 1 -2 years perhaps.
Well, so what?? Windows is on a lot more computers out there and still OS X is a better OS, in fact it is the OS people wish they had on their PCs. So Android is on a lot more devices, well will be, than iOS but with the choices Google made with Android that’s the exact thing that’s going to happen, so should Apple give up and start crying?? Hell no, they will compete and they will do what they did to Windows, they will just make a better OS if people buy it fine if they go to Android fine too.
The point is number of devices is irrelevant, people got this idea that more devices sold equals better device + better OS and that’s just not true. Titanic sold a lot more tickets than Sin City and if you don’t have a secret crush on Leo D. you know deep inside Sin City is better. So Android can sell 1 million devices per hour but that doesn’t make it better than iOS, webOS or even the last-gen BlackberryOS. Number of devices sold is kinda irrelevant, quality is one of if not the most important aspect of every product.
So yeah, more devices equals more devs, yeah you could say that but how many of those devs are good?? The People’s iPhones may outsell the iPhone but will their Marketplace have apps as good as the App Store?? Yeah, yeah the App Store have “fart” apps too but have you seen what people are doing with Brushes??? Is out of this world, so I say no The People’s iPhones won’t have apps as good as the App Store its like comparing OS X apps with the gazillions of Windows apps, if you have seriously used OS X apps for a few months you know they are better, I don’t I guess some of that Apple we care about design as much as functionality rubbed off on some of the OS X devs. Point is history is about to be repeated, Android will outsell iOS as Windows did with Mac OS and Mac OS X, now if we fast foward to 2010, Windows on a lot more computers than OS X but as far as I recall devs prefer OS X over Linux on the desktop and Windows, why because OS X have a “soul” and the other two don’t, they playing catch up just like Android will be catching up to iOS.
P.S. There’s a difference in having a feature the competition doesn’t have and having a feature the competition don’t want to implement.
APPL surpassed MSFT in market cap, right? So even if history repeats itself and “Android is the new Windows” Apple should be ok.
Android-based phones will outnumber other smart phones by year’s end…but does it matter as much to Apple as the competition with MSFT did? I don’t think so. Apple vs. Windows became mostly a b2b, not b2c race. The killer apps of the 80s were spreadsheets and word-processors, sold to businesses. Smartphone adoption is increasingly driven by consumers, not businesses” (taken from an answer from Nan Duan on Quora http://www.quora.com/Is-Android-iPhone-Windows-Mac-%28circa-1990%29?q=apple+android+windows)
MSFT makes money on # of licenses sold – split evenly between Windows and Office. Google’s replacing MSFT’s OS licensing fees with mobile search revenue, with the hope that they’ll make it up on volume…which could happen, but is a long way off and can’t simply be compared in # of units market share.
Goog makes money on # of searches done in the browser (for now, on both Android and non Android phones), and also on the # of ads appearing in apps (Android only). Apple makes (most?) of its money on device sales (vs. almost no rev per device for Android). It also will make money on iAds and continue to make money on app/content sales. Has anyone done the math – how much more mobile usage and app volume will Google have to have to overcome Apple’s profits from the iPhone? 10x? 100x? http://www.businessinsider.com/you-cant-appreciate-how-completely-apple-has-humiliated-rim-nokia-and-the-rest-of-the-gadget-industry-until-you-see-these-charts-2010-7
Which platform will deliver the experience that customers like best? Right now I think Apple delivers the best experience for most apps/devices. Android (and its developers) will continue to have development challenges with so many different devices and the possibility of the many different versions of the Android OS being out of sync. (see: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/07/19/nexus-one-rip and http://www.marco.org/769340032)
Which platform will deliver an experience that’s accessible to the most customers? Google seems on pace to make Android the answer to this question, but can they maintain their lead over the long haul or will iPhones continue to become available on other networks?
Either way, “Apple doesn’t need to be market leader to be hugely profitable and have a sizable ecosystem of 3rd party apps – just look at macs today. The iPhone will have enough share and a big enough ecosystem so that Apple won’t have to go through the kind of existential challenge it had back in the mid 90s” (also taken from the same Quora answer quoted above)
It’s really interesting to watch these corporate strategies play out in real-time, but we might just end up with a tie instead of a decided winner.
As others have pointed out, comparing all Android device activations worldwide with one Apple device (the iPhone 4) sales rate for one country is not comparing like for like.
That being said, lumping all Apple devices (iPod Touch, iPad etc) together, I would still expect Android to steadily overtake it. Apple won’t care so much; they generally don’t care about the Nokia’s of this world that own 50% of a commodity market; they would rather own the most profitable 10% of the market.
Somebody also made the mistake of saying:
“Hardware is rapidly commoditized. Remember the PC world?”
In general yes, but Apple have been very successful in avoiding commoditization. You can buy cheap Chinese non-name brand MP3 players and phones very cheaply with similar hardware specs but people still pay a premimum for iPods, iPhones and Apple computers; all of which have been around a relatively long time now. Its because the hardware no longer stands alone; you need the software like iTunes and Apps to support the hardware; and commodity hardware does not have that.
Hey, John
why do you count all together such different phones as Motorola Droid, HTC Incredible and Samsung Galaxy, HTC Evo? They are very different phones from very different vendors.
Certainly, companies which sell them put huge amount of money into advertising their phones, I see those ads everywhere – every newspaper, every magazine, every billboard — I’m bit tired of them. People buy them because they are motorola, samsung phones which they used for many years and because they are connected to Verizon, Sprint for which they bought family and other plans long time ago, people do not buy those phones because they are “Android phones”.
It’s a pretty big engineering achievement of Apple to build such a good phone so people change their plans to usually worse AT&T plan to enjoy iphone.
I understand your bias to Google, you wrote a really good book about Google so you like to promote Google achievements. But Android is not truly google achievement. It was developed outside Google and inside Google it was bit polished. Perhaps, in time you can do research on Android and Google and write a new interesting book with many surprising facts
Just before we look at any other numbers, let’s look at the 80/20 rule/phenomenon – in this case, 80% of the value of a market tends to come from the top 20%.
Then let’s remind ourselves that revenue from smartphones is going to come from advertising revenue… most revenue is going to come from the top 20% of consumers with the most money to buy stuff.
That’s why Apple shouldn’t/doesn’t care if it only ends up with a 10-20% market share – it only cares that it gets the cream at the top… and I’d argue it’s achieving that very nicely.
Just before we look at any other numbers, let’s look at the 80/20 rule/phenomenon – in this case, 80% of the value of a market tends to come from the top 20%.
Then let’s remind ourselves that revenue from smartphones is going to come from advertising revenue… most revenue is going to come from the top 20% of consumers with the most money to buy stuff.
That’s why Apple shouldn’t/doesn’t care if it only ends up with a 10-20% market share – it only cares that it gets the cream at the top… and I’d argue it’s achieving that very nicely.
1. Probably because all those phones use Android, and if I’m not mistaken, all have access to the Android app store. The result is that the quickly increasing number of Android phones in circulation will have a major influence on what platforms developers consider first for mobile apps.
2. You’re absolutely wrong that people aren’t buying these phones because they’re Android phones. Some people vehemently hate Apple; some just hate the iPhone; some hate AT&T. But I guarantee you that there are people right now walking into retailers / mobile providers and saying, “I want an Android phone”. If they’re not asking for specific phones by name as often as they’re asking for iPhones, it’s because of the brand dilution effect you cited.
“Apple, meet your new Windows. It’s name is Android”
Well, I hope for the millions that will be using Android that it doesn’t suck as much as its Microsoft counterpart!
Android OS has become better over time, is a mighty competitor to iOS and gained market share constantly.
I like that, because it keeps Apple on their toes and forces them move forward instead of stalling, see iOS4 and the great new display. And it provides price pressure, also a good thing.
I don’t care how is “better”.
As to what makes a plattform attractive to commercial developers: Existing market share, growth expectations and willingness of its users to pay for software.
“Apple, meet your new Windows. It’s name is Android.”
You really want to be on that side of the equation?
Shame on you! Awful comparison. You cannot compare Cars to Mouses or Cups to Books.
If you want to compare devices, compare iPhone 4 x Nexus One, or iPhone 4 x Droi X.
If you want to compare the sales of devices powered by Android, compare to sales of devices powered by iOS.
And, for that you should add iPhone 2G + iPhone 3G + iPhone 3GS + iPhone 4 + iPod Touch + iPad that are still sold every day on every country of the world.
I didn’t know this blog and I’m glad I didn’t.
And the reason, like why their computers are cute little niche products, is that Apple greedily locks everything down so they can profit off accessories in the short-term (for PCs it started off with software, monitors, and keyboards, and with cell phones it’s no replaceable battery or memory, no flash support.
The granola-eating Apple fanboys think they are supporting the progressive company, when Apple is way more greedy than anything Microsoft ever did. The only reason Microsoft is bigger is because they made far superior business decisions than Apple did.
Yet Apple didn’t learn the lesson, and they are doing the exact same thing again with cell phones. Apple will see their market share fall every single year for the foreseeable future until they license the OS.
It won’t be as bad, however, as what happened with PCs, because cell phones and internet are built on open architectures so the network effects won’t be as significant since Apple stuff will still inter operate with everything else.
But the best applications will come to Android first.
The article neglects the fact that the iPhone 3GS is still being sold alongside the iPhone 4, and at a very attractive price.
Apple is definitely going to see a jump when the iPhone is not exclusive to AT&T anymore.
Also, how many different user interfaces are there for Android? And when do the phone companies allow users to upgrade? How many different hardware configurations are there?
The Android market is very fragmented and hard to develop for.
Developers don’t know if users will be on Android 1.x, 2.0, 2.2 etc…
Developers don’t know which UI the device will be using. Blur? Sense?
Developers don’t know how much memory devices will have, or if devices have GPS, or what resolution they are running at, or if they have a physical keyboard, or any other number of hardware configuration differences.
I like Android, as it provides competition for Apple. But selling so many different devices with so many different hardware configurations and OS versions is not necessarily a boon for developers…
Wow…you really struck a nerve with the iFools on this one. They are all over the place contradicting themselves.
All before now the fact that the iPhone was the biggest selling device meant that it was the best. People were obviously buying the best experience so thats why it sold more. They’d even site Androids market share of 9% despite that ironically being the same share of the market that OS X has while they claim its better than Windows. Now that Android is overrunning the iPhone none of this matters. Now they say people buy Windows more but OS X is really better. No no folks. People are buying the best mobile devices which are run on Android period….end of story.
Will this kill Apple? No. And no one cares whether Apple sinks or swims. It simply tells devs that if they ignore Android they are ignoring what will soon be the majority of the market. Does Google make as much from Android as Apple does? Most likely not (at least not now). They never intended to do so. They intended to make sure that their services weren’t enslaved to anyone else in the mobile market that could easily cut them out on a big portion of the future of the internet. They also increase mind share by getting their services into everyones hands. I know its hard for alot of you iFans to understand as you’re used to watching Apple which is basically a hardware company. Google is much much more of a software engineering company and does this type of thing on many fronts from Android to software libraries for web development to libraries for Java development and so on….for free. They use this all to push the web in the direction they need without trying to control it. For example the Chrome browser pushes all the others to up their performance so that they can provide more advanced services on the web. They don’t sit back and wait for things to happen….they make it happen. So Android in terms of profit is nothing different than the rest of their freebies. Its a move now to secure the long term. And for the long term my bet would be on Google. The iPhone is already being surpassed….the web will not.
The AT&T exclusivity means Apple can secretly charge between $650 and $800 per iPhone sold in the USA. If they were to sell it to Verizon tomorrow, Apple would have to instantly lower the price per phone to $400 like all the Android devices that are out there. Apple doesn’t like the idea of going from $500+ profit per iPhone to $250, that would be halving of their profit margins if they were to stop the AT&T exclusivity.
Apple fanboys need to understand Apple only cares about making as stinking much money as they can, no matter how many evil tricks they have to throw at their users. The antenna happens to be defective? Apple doesn’t want to do a recall, they’d rather give everyone a piece of plastic that costs them less than $0.50 to make.
Maybe some class action lawsuits will force them to do a global recall on iPhone 4 unless they extend free return/exchange for fixed antenna version to all existing iPhone 4 users. Apple can afford it, but it will delay international launch and hurt their image.Today Android is selling 3x faster than iPhone. By the end of the year, Android may be selling 10x faster than the iPhone. By then, Android will have taken over iPhone in worldwide market share.
John:
I do not understand why you insist on making the argument that Apple is either wrong or cannot succeed, or is bound to fail. What is it they do that so terrifies you? Why do you discount their approach? Why do you automatically align your arguments to support Apple ‘opposition’ and play up the the value and sure success of Apple’s competion in various markets? There must be a killer MP3 player out there somewhere, right John?
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A very similar story was posted to Fortune magazine last week.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/16/steve-jobs-confirms-android-outselling-iphone/
If you are going to compare android to iOS then I really think you should take into account the ipad, iphone 3gs and Iphone 4G. The fact that you are denying Apples dominating position in the market is unbelievable. The reason Android is going to lose this battle, wether or not they sell more device based on the os (which they don’t”, is that the quality of apps will never be as good as the iphone app store. A developer has to take into consideration which android version he is going to support and make compromises so that the application will function on different sized screens.
Nothing to say here except that Google’s PR and Marketing teams are about as worthless as they come. As both a marketing consultant and stock holder for many years, I becoming increasingly frustrated by GOOG’s inability to control the message.
@Phil,
Before calling anyone a fool don’t you think it might be good idea to do a little google search to see who is the biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world? And the maybe see who is the second biggest? And then take a good look in the mirror before shooting off nonsense?
Currently Apple is the third biggest smartphone manufaturer and mobile OS platform behind Nokia/Symbian and RIM/blackberry. Since google gave up making phones a short while ago, it only makes sense to consider them in OS platform category, in which the are fourth place.
So Apple has certaily never claimed to be the market leader in smartphone OS category. No hypocracy there. In fact, Steve Jobs said in 2007 that he would be quite happy if Apple gained 1% of the mobile phone market, which they have. He has said they never expected the app store to become such a success. It’s actually people like you making stuff up and inventing fact and context and blowing things out of proportion.
This is nothing at all like comparing Apple to Microsoft in desktop OS. What is this asking whether Google makes as much from Android as Apple does from iPhone, and then answering “most likely not.” do you seriously think there is a chance they are? Google doesn’t make anything from Android. Not a penny. They spend all this money and effort to protect their mobile ad business? From whom? Apple? Check the chronology of the events. Who was Google’s initial worry? The carriers? Microsoft? Apple wasn’t competing with google in mobile ad business in a couple of years ago, were they?
Windows is the right analogy in some ways where it has a high market share but also in that it is the bargain basement OS. The WIN Os experience has been so devalued people are only willing to pay the absolute $299 minimum for an Intel PC with WIN OS but an Intel Pc with mac OS – worth an avergae selling price of nearly $1,000 more … and that is already true of Android. Note that Google says activation NOT sold but most Android phones are BOGO.
For Android users, it is the more akin to the LInux model – are there even TWO Android phones that look or operate the same (OS and telco skin wise?) It’s a fragmented modelw ith 10 OS flavors, 15 telco and manufacture “skins,” and 20+ storefronts.
While the general press think market share is the only number when it’s really maningless. While Apple makes $20 billion a year from the iphone, Google makes practically nothing and until they make back the $750 million Apple tricked them in spending for AdMob + the billion? spent on a “free giveaway” OS, they have a lot of clicks to make up to get back to zero.
What the typical person doesn’t understand is Google is ONLY interested in making sure the search bar works in the mobile browser, the rest – me’h … that’s why 90%+ of the Android apps are pirated and NO developer has reported sales of more than 50k or the security issue – they’ll yank it later but you’re on your own.
Android is a fine symbian replacement, it’s free and DIYers like it because it’s easy to crack – it’s Linux. And Google will make as much on it as Linux sellers do – it’s a hobby so the Android market is not the equivilient to the iphone – there’s no loyalty, the apps are homemade and not a professional sellers market and NO two Android look or operate the same … again, it should surprise no one as google’s ONLY INTEREST is to make sure the search bar works in the browser. The rest is like Google’s 25+ other ventures, a diversion that is quickly shut down.
In all this conversation, an important point has been missed. Virtually all of these Android shipments represent net new additions to the installed base. I believe I’ve seen the statistic that something on the order of 1/3 of the new iPhones are in fact going into the installed base, replacing original iPhones (most of which will be retired). Thus, the impact on the installed base is much more pronounced than the shipment differential. And after all, it’s the installed base that matters if you’re an application developer assessing priorities.
Apple announced 230k iOS activated per day, just as an update… And the comparison to Windows is predictable, lazy and historically not accurate.
Just because Android crossed 20 % market share it’s not set in stone to become an OS monopoly, what with all the other competitors out there.
Remember, just 4 years ago, Windows Mobile held 30 % of the smartphone market, while Symbian held the other 70 %. Both were openly licenseable, both are under extreme pressure today. In the end their market shares didn’t amount to anything as better products entered the market.