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In regards to the concept of “most successful”… We’re not talking about best, the focus is economic success. Units sold, sale price etc. This is where the iPhone has been dominant and it’s the reason Apple has developed into the world’s most valuable company. We’re also not talking about sales from last month or last year, the title is meant to address all-time figures.
Equally important is the type of good sold. We have consumables and durable goods - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good. The iPhone falls into the category of durable goods. A hard good that yields utility of time, you do not eat your iPhone (or at least you shouldn’t). Examples of consumables include Coca-Cola, Kleenex, Big Mac etc. Because consumables are meant to be “consumed” one is encouraged to purchase multiples of the same product over time. Even with the more consistent consumption of popular beverages revenue figures for companies like Coca-Cola are not currently competitive with the revenue figures of Apple. This of course is a reflection of the average price per transaction.
Lastly, we have commodities (oil, coffee, copper etc.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity These are not unique “products” in the same sense as a smartphone or game console from a specific manufacturer.
Here is a list of popular items from various categories.
(Source - http://www.asymco.com/2016/07/28/most-popular-product-of-all-time/)
Car model: VW Beetle 21.5 million
Car brand: Toyota Corolla 43 million
Music Album: Thriller 70 million
Vehicle: Honda Super Cub 87 million
Book Title: Lord of the Rings 150 million
Toy: Rubik’s Cube 350 million
Game console: Playstation 382 million
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0:00
It has been a while
0:01
It's been one week. What the f*** you been doing? So I've been thinking a lot about the iPhone since the last video I put up
0:09
I presented a couple of different viewpoints on what this phone represents
0:13
This iPhone 8 and eventually the iPhone 10. And the significance of the iPhone as a product and Apple the company as a whole
0:22
They've both been a significant part of the rise of this channel, my channel
0:27
and the rise of tech videos on YouTube. So I've been thinking a lot about the iPhone in general as a product
0:35
Now taking me back to that original iPhone, what Apple says is the next big thing
0:40
Now I doubt very many people would argue the fact that the iPhone brand has had a substantial impact
0:47
not just on YouTube and channels like mine, but on the world as a whole. Now what might surprise a lot of you
0:52
is that the initial iPhone didn't actually sell that well. I don't think people knew if they wanted it or not
0:56
if they needed it or not, 14 million units. Now that number pales in comparison to the eventual sales figure
1:03
for the most popular version of the iPhone ever, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
1:08
Apple sold around 200 million of those. So you can see how that business scaled from the original iPhone
1:14
to the most popular version. But when you clicked on this video, you saw the title
1:19
You saw this outrageous claim. This idea that the iPhone might just be the most successful product ever
1:28
Ever? Well, I put something like this on my Twitter recently, and my goodness, did people fire back with their opinions of what the most successful products were
1:38
Now, when we talk about success, we're not talking strictly economically. We're probably talking mostly economically
1:44
but we're also talking the number of units sold, the number of units in existence
1:48
the number of units that are still being used to this day. In other words, the durability of the product
1:53
Because the next question that tends to come up, consumables. You start to mention things like Coca-Cola and the Big Mac
2:00
Where your dollar gets a break every day. These things that you're meant to have a lot of frequently and then they disappear
2:06
What about Kleenex? Dominating! More for your money and colors too. It's hard to go anywhere and not see a box of Kleenex
2:13
But again, it's a cheap box. Sure, over the course of your life you buy a lot of it
2:18
But how much do you buy of it? Do you buy $1,000 a year worth of it
2:22
What about Coca-Cola? Those are about a buck apiece. You get 1,000 of those. So here's the thing
2:26
When you combine the frequency at which you buy a product, the lifespan of that product
2:30
and how often you upgrade it, and the overall economic investment in that product
2:35
you land on things like this, on these devices that frequently change out for us
2:40
There are very few things in your life that you spend the kind of money
2:44
that you spend on your new phone. Apple specifically has dominated the luxury segment
2:50
The average price of an iPhone sold including older models at retail is just under per unit Now to put that in perspective the average sale price of a Galaxy device is around
3:03
Now that's because Samsung retails less expensive Galaxy devices elsewhere in the world, and they sell well
3:09
This is why when you look at current market share figures, you see Apple has dipped down to number three
3:15
But when we talk about successful products in general, we're not talking about last month
3:20
We're talking about overall. Now, the iPhone has been around a while in smartphone terms
3:25
What is it, like nine years? But that's still relatively short when you compare it to the leaders in other market segments
3:32
So, Horace Deju, who wrote this article, which captured my attention, where he lists off the most successful products buy category
3:39
Okay, here we go. Car model, the VW Beetle, that sold 21.5 million units
3:44
Now, cars are interesting because they're expensive. So that's a lot of transactional revenue
3:50
That's a lot of money turning over. But even then, it's only 21 million units
3:54
When you scan all the way down to the bottom to mobile phone, you can see that the iPhone has passed 1 billion units in existence
4:01
1 billion car brand. It doesn't mean like Ford, Mazda, Chevy, a particular model over the years
4:07
Not one version of that model. Toyota Corolla wins out there. 43 million units at the time of this article
4:13
Of course, that figure's a little bit higher now. How about music album Thriller by Michael Jackson
4:18
and 70 million copies. Vehicle overall, the Honda Super Cub, 87 million units
4:24
That's a little bike, which apparently took over the world. I was unaware of it
4:28
Book title, Lord of the Rings, 150 million copies. The Rubik's Cube sold 350 million units
4:35
and this got me thinking about, what about all those knockoffs? Probably an even bigger number
4:39
Now, this is where things get really interesting to me, is when we talk about game consoles
4:43
PlayStation, as a product, 1, 2, 3, 4, and the various versions in between
4:50
has sold close to 400 million units. Almost half of the number of iPhones that are out there
4:56
But with a PlayStation, it's kind of useless without software. I know you're going to bring up the idea of the App Store on the iPhone
5:03
but the iPhone is functional even without downloading third-party apps. A PlayStation without games
5:08
the expectation is that you will buy expensive software for it. So if you were to tally up those 400 million PlayStations
5:13
plus the average number of games to go along with it, now you have a compelling argument
5:18
PlayStation might be the second most successful product ever. Now things get even more complicated
5:23
when you head over to the Wikipedia page of the best-selling phones ever
5:26
because at the top, you'll see it's dominated by a company you rarely hear about anymore
5:32
Nokia. These guys occupy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, at least 7 of the top 10 spots with very similar models
5:40
The 1100 and 1110 those bar style phones which all of you have seen and each one of those models sold 250 million units Now smartphones don appear until number three where you have that iPhone 6 and 6 Plus that I mentioned earlier in 2014 It highly unlikely that these devices occupying the top spots from Nokia
6:01
are still in use today because they got sideswiped by the new idea
6:06
by the touchscreen smartphone, by the computer in your pocket. Nonetheless, they're still at the top
6:12
iOS devices will sometime shortly pass a trillion dollars in revenue. A trillion dollars worth of iOS devices just out there. Broken down into individual units
6:23
we're talking about a billion iPhones, either in people's hands. I'm sure some of them are in
6:28
landfills. Lou, what about Android? You tell us you're using Android, you like Android. Android is
6:34
outselling iPhone. That is where the growth in the marketplace is happening. They have a far greater
6:39
breadth of product offerings. That's one of the advantages of Android. Now, if we were comparing
6:45
Android devices completely against Apple devices. Of course, we'd have a huge number
6:50
but Android in and of itself is not a product, it's a license. The top Samsung device on this list
6:56
is not a Galaxy phone at all. It's the E1100, of which there were
7:01
150 million units sold. And that was a bar-style phone. The top Galaxy device is the S4
7:08
which sold around 80 million units. In other words, not even half
7:11
of what the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sold. But even if you were to take all of the Galaxy devices, the best-selling Galaxy devices, and put them against this one
7:20
if you added up everything on this page, you still don't get to the iPhone's figure
7:24
Now, granted, if we're looking at this thing as a race, of course, Samsung is catching up rapidly
7:30
and Apple continues to dwindle as a percentage of overall worldwide sales
7:34
But when we talk about a successful product, we're talking about the lifespan as a whole
7:39
And that's why the other side of the conversation gets interesting with the Coca-Colas of the world
7:44
Now, for those of you that are going to be down in the comments talking about bottled water, oil, and coffee
7:49
but here's the thing, those things in and of themselves are not unique products
7:52
And you might say, what about cars? They're so expensive. It's not a fair comparison. Well, none of this is a fair comparison, obviously
7:58
Now, when it comes to this conversation about the success of the iPhone in general
8:03
Apple has one kind of trick up its sleeve. They call everything iPhone
8:07
Every series of iPhone is iPhone. Even when there's an older model, last year's model, that becomes the budget model
8:14
even though it's usually not so budget, for the following year. iPhone 5, 6, 7, 8, SE, these various versions are essentially just continuations of the previous version being sold
8:26
And so because of that, when you add them all up, they become part of this product's success
8:31
part of this billion figure. And now that brings us to the more abstract part of this conversation
8:37
Maybe we're not just talking about success in a strictly economic sense
8:41
Maybe let also look at it from another angle a relevancy angle There one thing you do every single day of your life You reach for your smartphone or you have it in your pocket Companies like Uber and Google and Tinder that was spawned of this ability to immediately access the web
9:00
Earlier today, we're watching music videos from the 90s. And you notice that people in the street, they're not staring down, crouched over a device
9:09
So the implications here with this particular product. Massive behavioral changes that now exist among society as a consequence of access to one of these things
9:20
What about the camera? The fact that everyone is now carrying one. What does that mean
9:24
Oh, well it means that when some sort of injustice happens, you can guarantee it's going to be recorded and uploaded
9:30
Whether you're a fan of Apple or not, the implications are massive
9:34
The numbers are massive. Whether or not you think it's the most successful product ever might have to do with your interpretation of success and product
9:42
It's very difficult to argue the dominance of the iPhone to this point
9:46
I personally think you can make a really good case for the iPhone as the most successful product ever
9:52
But even if the iPhone is the most successful product ever, I don't think it's going to stay that way
9:58
All the data we're looking at right now shows a lot of manufacturers coming up quickly and closing that gap on overall sales figures for all time
10:06
Maybe we're on the tail end. Maybe the significance of the iPhone is diminishing
10:10
And maybe this iPhone 8 right here is evidence of that. They're certainly not going to sell zero of them
10:17
but I don't think they'll ever have the market dominance that they once did. This episode of Unbox Therapy has been brought to you by Audible
10:30
This, of course, is your place to find all the audiobooks you could ever want
10:35
including one that I've been listening to recently. An effective way to listen to books rather than have to read them
10:42
I know myself, I like to do it in the car if you have a long commute. Why sit there in traffic bumper to bumper without learning
10:50
You could be learning something. I mean, I like to listen to non-fiction stuff. But hey, maybe if you like fiction, you could float off into some faraway land
10:59
instead of just being stuck in gridlock. Now right now, I'm listening to the Steve Jobs book from Walter Isaacson
11:06
and I think that ties in well to this video right here. If you're interested in some of the early stage development
11:13
of that original iPhone that I talked about earlier, you can hear a lot of the backstory
11:18
in this particular biography. And the cool part here is you can try it out for free
11:23
using the link in the description or heading over to audible.com slash unbox
11:28
You get a 30-day free trial and you get to download one book
11:32
that you can keep regardless. Even if you cancel your membership, That book is yours on the house. You get to keep it
11:38
Listen to some books. Because your Uncle Lou told you to
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