Summary
Apple's market performance with iPhone faces increasing threats from competitors:
a. Products based on Google's Android operating system .
b. International market challenges, in China e.g.
c. Legal/technology based threats/challenges from Nokia e.g.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/22/technology/Nokia_Apple_lawsuit/index.htm
d. Market growth constraints due to customer dissatisfaction with poor service,performance and unstable software owing to premature market launch .
Analysis
1. Many competitor products based on Android ( e.g. Research In Motion Inc., Deutsche Telekom's subsidiary T-mobile,Google Inc., Sony Corp., Palm Inc. Motorola Inc., Verizon, Sprint Nextel,HTC,Dell ,Nokia ) are vying for market share from Apple at home and abroad.
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see my analysis titled 'Google's Android's popularity could be its major downfall' dated 10/19/2009
2. Even international markets such as China pose increasing competition from domestic carriers like China Telecom,China Mobile Ltd. and China Unicom in an increasingly mature market conditions
-see my analysis titled 'Chinese mobile market-growth patterns emulating a relatively mature market' dated 10/21/2009
-also see my analysis entitled 'Apple eyes the Chinese market with iPhone' dated 09/20/2009
3. Nokia's intellectual property rights claim ( even if ill founded ) and lawsuit against Apple re iPhone's use of various patented property from Nokia is bound to damage Apple's reputation in the market place.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/22/technology/Nokia_Apple_lawsuit/index.htm
It may be a tactic by Nokia to harm Apple's market position in the mobile handset space where Nokia has held a dominant position and wants to counteract with own products-see :
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/08/24/nokia.apple.smartphones.ft/index.html
4. Lastly,but not the least; problems re technology based issues have been highlighted in my previous analysis titled:
-"Google VOIP apps via Mobile -a trilogy" dated 09/20/2009.
Too rapid a growth in the market and Apple's iPhone share within it has and will lead to increasing dissatisfaction with users and in the long term will be detrimental to Apple's market position.
In short, as a market leader Apple's iPhone is bound to face increasing competitive threats/pressure from other market players and it will have to run hard to maintain its lead position.
