July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

When you start at 100 percent, there’s nowhere to go but down. Even so, Apple CEO Tim Cook’s approval rating among Apple employees is still very, very high.

Apple’s been through some tough spots historically. And while anyone who remembers the “beleaguered” days of the late 90s and early 2000s can’t think that the company is in too much trouble right now, with the stock losing hundreds of billions of dollars and Google’s Android taking massive mobile market share, there’s definitely a sense that Apple’s best days might be in the rear-view mirror.

But Cook has maintained 90-plus-percent approval ratings internally, according to Glassdoor:

That’s just a shade below Steve Jobs’ lifetime rating of 97 percent.

In addition, Apple employees are still pretty happy to be working at the iconic Cupertino company. Employee satisfaction, which reached a peak 80 percent in the middle of 2012 when Apple’s stock soared to over $700, has only dropped slightly to 78 percent.

Which doesn’t mean that working at Apple is easy. Or that working for Tim Cook is easy.

Cook looks for early hours, according to one Apple manager in Cupertino, who said he was “a CEO who demands work before 6 AM every day, and ‘accountability without control.’” And another Apple employee, an engineer, complained about work/life balance at Apple … or rather, the lack thereof.

“No work life balance is to be expected while working at Apple. Weekly management reviews and expectations from management is that you are reachable after work hours.”

The upcoming Worldwide Developer Conference will be an interesting test for Cook, and Apple. After basically telling the world not to expect any new products before fall, an iOS7 reveal will likely be the big news at the developer-focused show — and well as, possibly, announcements about developments in Apple core services like music and media.

Those announcements have to be good enough to reassure the Apple faithful within and without the company that Apple is still the leader in mobile operating systems and ecosystems and can still amaze and delight its customers.

And its team members.

Image credit: Dean Takahashi

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Will the iPhone 5 be coming to China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers? Apple needs this, sure, but make no mistake: China Mobile needs it just as bad.

China is the world’s largest market for smartphones, edging out the U.S. in July of 2012 to take the crown. But the country’s biggest carrier, China Mobile, does not yet officially carry the iPhone, despite the fact that probably tens of millions of its customers have purchased Apple’s smartphones elsewhere, jailbroke them, and are using them on its network.

But the need to jailbreak an iDevice to get it to work on China Mobile may soon be over, as Tim Cook and China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua met today to discuss “matters of cooperation,” according to Reuters.

And both companies need each other. Badly.

Apple needs to grow, and while it has had a great past few months domestically — rising over 50 percent market share stateside — global market share is another matter entirely, as 75 percent of all new phones are being activated in Asia and Africa. China is the world’s most populous country, buys the most smartphones, and has the most cellular subscribers, and China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers could easily become tens of millions of Apple customers — if Apple can do the deal.

Meanwhile, China Mobile might be the queen of carriers right now, with that massive subscriber base, but the company has its own issues.

China Mobile’s share of the most lucrative customers is dipping, with a seven percent 3G subscriber market share loss in 2012. The company’s situation is analogous to Japan’s NTT Docomo. Docomo, long the digital darling of mobile carriers and Japan’s premier mobile telecom, is losing subscribers at a record rate due to its easily-solvable lack of iPhonicity.

Simply put: iPhone subscribers are the most valuable segment of telecom markets. By missing out on this segment, China Mobile is hurting its own profits and benefiting its competitors, who do carry the iPhone.

But 700 million subscribers is a very nice little cherry indeed, and it sounds like China Mobile will not do a deal without significant concessions from Apple — possibly including a share of app store revenue, something Apple has never done before and is unlikely to do today.

These two companies have been talking since 2009. Now is the time for both of them to do a deal, for both their sakes.

iOS-based smartphones took 48.1 percent of the U.S. market in the last three months, compared to 46.7 percent for Android-based smartphones, as iPhone 5 sales hit their stride, Apple’s manufacturing challenges were fixed, and the company finally seemed to catch up to demand.

“The last time we saw iOS overtake Android in the US was when the iPhone 4S was released and Apple managed to retain its lead for three consecutive periods,” Dominic Sunnebo, a consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, said in a statement. “This time we predict that Apple will beat its previous high of 49.3% and achieve its highest ever share of the US smartphone market within the next two periods.”

This is very welcome news for the Cupertino company, which has seen Android absolutely dominate the market in previous months.

Most of the sales — about 60 percent — driving iOS’s march back to the top were existing iPhone owners upgrading to iPhone 5s. That speaks to Apple’s renowned customer loyalty. Sunnebo said that roughly 40 percent of sales were to new customers.

The good news stateside, however, is not matched across the pond. Europe is still strongly Android territory, with Android claiming 74 percent of the market in Germany and 82 percent in Spain. However, Apple is gaining in four of the five major European markets, according to Kantar Worldpanel, especially in Britain, where it has a 33 percent share.

Interestingly, style-conscious Italy seems to be fertile ground for Windows Phone, with the Lumia 610 and the Lumia 800 showing strong sales and driving Windows Phone market share to 11.7 percent.

Really, though, the markets to look at are not Europe or North America but emerging markets in Asia and Africa, where 75 percent of all new phones were sold in the last quarter alone.

Those are the markets that matter for the companies earning market share for tomorrow … not just today.

But Apple will savor this win for today, at least.

photo credit: albyantoniazzi via photopin cc