We are talking about the most valuable company in the world, and the M1 release was covered enthusiastically the world over. The notion that it's US-only is absolutely preposterous.
Apple is a significant player in mobile in the entirety of the West. Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands. And it's PC saturation is virtually the same in Canada and Europe as the US. Even in European media it is incredibly common to see Apple devices (phones and PCs) as the placeholders.
Apple even has 20% of the mobile marketshare in China. That's incredible. It has 60%+ in Japan.
The corporation buying a fleet of low-end PCs for seat warmers aren't going to buy Apple (nor are they buying Surface Pros. They're buying the junkiest HP or Dell they can get). But there are as many "artsy" people, or people who care about the experience, in other rich countries as well.
Go to a mall in Bangkok and you will lose count of the number of people walking around with iphones. I don't know what you consider a "tier 2 and tier 3" country, since I think you just made that up, but maybe you should travel more.
In Italy iPhones used to be 50% of the market, because they were a status symbol and it was literally the only smartphone available, ten years after they have dropped below 24% globally, but new sells are much less, because
The number of people buying their first iPhone is declining. Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference this week will showcase how the technology giant is diversifying so that it no longer has to rely so heavily on its signature product.
-- 20th June 2020 - Bangkok Post
Regarding new phones Apple is now third with 10% of the market share in Thailand behind Samsung (22.3%) and Huawei (17.6%)
Consider that 25% is a minority, 75% is 3 times larger.
Apple is not gaining market shares anywhere, except in the US.
In China it dropped from 25% to 17%, in Europe from 17% to 14% in the last year.
The article was about ARM in computers, Apple computing devices are only 8% of the total in Thailand.
Those were not personal attacks, they were explaining that apple stuff is desired around the world and even in countries with lower incomes, people will save up to buy apple hardware, buy it used, etc.
If there were any such thing as "tier 2 and tier 3 countries" in any broad sense, I'd say that's quite a lazy and disingenuous transition from "only on HN" and only something the US cares about, to "outside of the vast bulk of the world's economy".
Further I don't think you understand what "significant" marketshare is. Even 10% marketshare is significant, where the actions of that market player is impactful. But Apple is pushing way above that almost everywhere.
This circular logic is more disingenuous noise (the userbase of HN is utterly irrelevant given that you're trying to prove your own absurd claim that only HN cares, when clearly the entire developed world cares). How are you not moderated down to transparent by now? [I will tell you why - because the title draws in a certain crowd that is comforted by your nonsense, however fictional it is]
Whatever you hope the position of Apple is doesn't correlate with reality.
Aside: Ferrari has between 0.01% - 0.1% marketshare in a given year in the richest countries, and that is your example why Apple -- at 20% or so in most of the world's economies -- is irrelevant. That is some perilously embarrassing nonsense. Hyundai, in contrast, has 7% marketshare in the US and is considered a pretty big player.
> Apple -- at 20% or so in most of the world's economies
Apple has 17% (and dropping) of the mobile market share in Europe and around 9% in computing.
There aren't many other richer economies in the World.
Ferrari is worth now more than General Motors and Ford, so market share and net worth are not comparable.
Their market share is small because they make a luxury limited edition product.
They limit their production capacity to around 10 thousands cars/year (all sold in pre order), Apple is trying to sell as many devices they can.
There are no Ferrari Store where you can buy a Ferrari and drive it home half an hour later.
It's not a small difference.
Last but not least, there is a lot more competition between car manufacturers, even in the most expensive segments, Apple devices are only made by Apple.
Hyundai, for example, had a net income of over 3 trillion in 2019, Apple net income is measured in tens of billions.
We are talking about the most valuable company in the world, and the M1 release was covered enthusiastically the world over. The notion that it's US-only is absolutely preposterous.
Apple is a significant player in mobile in the entirety of the West. Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands. And it's PC saturation is virtually the same in Canada and Europe as the US. Even in European media it is incredibly common to see Apple devices (phones and PCs) as the placeholders.
Apple even has 20% of the mobile marketshare in China. That's incredible. It has 60%+ in Japan.
The corporation buying a fleet of low-end PCs for seat warmers aren't going to buy Apple (nor are they buying Surface Pros. They're buying the junkiest HP or Dell they can get). But there are as many "artsy" people, or people who care about the experience, in other rich countries as well.