The FT is heavily biased. Pinch of salt?
Look at the bigger picture and it can be seen that it's not just Apple having to deal with a slow in demand (no matter how great they think their ithings are).
Apple's main manufacturing buddy Foxconn has frozen hiring at a Shenzhen plant and other factories across China, but denies it has anything to do with the fruity firm in particular. The parts-manufacturer for tech firms ranging from Apple to Dell said today that it wasn't slowing down recruitment because of any particular …
"Apple sold fewer iPhones than expected over the holidays at 47.8 million, sparking speculation that fanbois might finally be tiring of Jesus-mobe upgrades while Android gains market share"
That's not what the numbers are saying:
http://blogs.strategyanalytics.com/HCST/post/2013/02/20/Strategy-Analytics-Apple-iPhone-5-Becomes-Worlds-Best-Selling-Smartphone-Model-in-Q4-2012.aspx
The thing you are missing is that not so long ago Apple WAS the smartphone market, more or less, with more apple phones selling than all android phones combined. The article you linked lists an 'others' figure, which will be almost entirely android smartphones, with a number which dwarfs the units shifted by Apple. So the trend is most definitely towards Android gaining market share.
Well yes, that's called 'first-mover advantage'. What you seemingly fail to comprehend is that there was only 1 initial Android device released in September 2008 (HTC G1 I believe) with a ~9 month gap between the next devices to be released In the 4.33 years since the market place has been saturated with 300 or so Android *phones* released - many of which were given away with contracts. Apple have release 6 and still, despite what El Reg want us to believe, dominate the sales. If you look at the numbers based on this particular piece of research, it appears that the share of the market place that Apple have has increased over the last quarter. It's also worth noting that the 'Other' category also contains iPhone 4 sales, as well as Windows, Blackberry and the rest. Most importantly in business terms, Apple own the profits. This with Samsung out-spending Apple's marketing by quite some margin. It would also be reasonable to assert that Samsung are Android.
The article you quote states that "Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S together accounted for 1 in 5 of all smartphones shipped worldwide in Q4 2012". Obviously that's impressive, but I don't see that you can really describe it as 'dominating the sales' in the way that they used to. Clearly Apple "own the profits" as you say, but since they don't seem to do much with it other than store it off-shore from the US so as to not pay tax, I'm not sure that this really matters much in terms of the article concerned.
I have owned both Apple and Android smartphones and currently own neither, so really I'm not deeply bothered, but as a 'neutral observer' it still seems to me that the market is distinctly shifting away from Cupertino and towards the little green robot guy. Perhaps I'm just wrong, I guess time will tell.
At any rate, I get the strong impression that you care more about this than I do so I'll leave you to it :).
No new clichés.
Both Parnell and Leach will still be spitting anti-Apple invective for years to come.
Regarding the stuff regularly based upon the ramblings of some third-rate analyst somewhere, as SimB stated "That's not what the numbers are saying". If only I had a tenner for every time some richard-headed analyst has spouted pure drivel and subsequently proved to be 100% inaccurate, I'd be able to retire.
Journalists pandering to the anti-Apple mob are not doing themselves, their employers or their readers any favours.
"Forced", "slave labour".... deary, deary me. People queue up and beg for jobs at Foxconn, as the shit conditions there are heavenly compared to some of the other jobs in the area.
I take it you don't own a smart phone, TV, games console, PC or laptop, as you feel so strongly about the poor working conditions in Shenzhen, where practically every electronic device in the world is made? Many of which (not just Apple's iShite) are also incidentally made by Foxconn.
"Apple sold fewer iPhones than expected over the holidays at 47.8 million"
The Good News is The Apple iPhone 5 Overtakes Samsung Galaxy S3 to Become World's Best-Selling Smartphone Model in Q4 2012
Not only that but so did the iPhone 4S
Just saying like.
Indeed. It is interesting to note that anal-ists are falling all over their big swinging dicks claiming Apple must release an entry level (read: cheap and and nasty pos) device, yet Apple's "entry level device is in fact doing extremely well.
The 4S is very good value and 27m punters apparently agreed.
Why dilute the brand with a pos for poor people? It serves no purpose.
Dweeb