Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, reflecting on Apple‘s (AAPL) intention not to continue providing a dedicated YouTube application for its iOS operating system on the iPhone, iPad and iPod, today writes that Apple and Google (GOOG) are entering the “third phase” of the smartphone wars.
In the third phase, writes Munster, who rates Apple stock Overweight, with a $910 price target, Apple is focusing on partnerships, whereas Google is focusing on integrating its own offerings into the Android software it provides to Samsung and other vendors.
Munster thinks the advantage will go to Apple, and that as a consequence, its global smartphone share will rise from 20% this year to 32% by 2015, and that the share of all Android-based smartphones combined will drop from 58% to 53% in that time frame.
The first phase, argues Munster, was about features of the phone itself and its operating system. Apple had the lead, but Google has “significantly closed the feature gap” with the introduction of the “Jelly Bean” version of Android last month.
In phase two, Apple took the lead in offering “apps” for iOS. But now Google’s “Google Play” store has brought Android “close to parity.”
Here’s how Munster describes phase three:
Mobiles OSes Becoming About Partner (Apple) Vs. Own (Google). The integrated services battle on mobile is shaping up to be all of the platforms and content Apple is integrating into iOS against Google and all of Google’s platforms. Apple has Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Fandango, OpenTable, Rotten Tomatoes, etc, which are all now directly woven into iOS/Siri. Google has its strongest offering, search/maps and Google Now tightly integrated into Android, but has to rely on Zagat, Google +, Gmail, GTalk, etc to compete with iOS partners in social, local, and other verticals.
Apple shares today are $1.61, or 0.3%, at $620.94. Google stock is off $1.56 at $641.26.
Source : http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/08/07/apples-partnerships-to-trump-google-integration-says-piper/
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