Steve Jobs Blasts Android Despite Lower iPhone 4 Sales

○ Android tablets dead on arrival?

Steve Jobs did something out of the ordinary by appearing at an earnings call with investors. He used it as an opportunity to criticize tablet PCs based on Google’s Android technology as if determined to do so.

He even said Android-based tablets will be dead on arrival as soon as they hit the market.

Jobs said most tablet PCs have seven-inch screens but because this is the half the length of a 10-inch iPad, making good apps is hard. Excluding iPad, most tablet PCs use a seven-inch screen including Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.

Despite Jobs’ boasting, the iPad’s business performance as announced the same day was disappointing. According to U.S.-based investment bank Piper Jaffray, Wall Street investors forecast the sale of 4.7 million iPads in the third quarter but sales came in at 4.19 million.

Jobs said Apple balanced supply and demand as production grew last month. “We’ve got a tiger by the tail and if the distribution channels increase, their sales will rise dramatically,” he said.

Apple also applied for certification of an iPad embedding 3G communications with the Broadcasting Communications Commission in Korea. Since this is the final legal process before selling a product, the iPad is expected to go on sale in Korea from next month.

○ Not fragmented but integrated

Despite lower sales of iPads, revenue from the iPhone 4 supported the company’s performance. A combined 14.1 million iPhone 4 units were sold in the third quarter, three million more than projected. Buying an iPhone 4 is possible only via advance sale.

In addition, Apple reported a shortage of “Apple TVs,” which Jobs called his hobby, in the last meeting after more than 250,000 units were sold in the first 18 days.

Jobs also balked at the notion that the business model is so closed that its growth seems challenging. "In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, what`s best for the customer, fragmented versus integrated,” he said.

He said the competition between integrated iPhones and fragmented Android phones made by manufacturers, communications companies and content providers on their own will pit “fragmented versus integrated.”

sanhkim@donga.com