How market leaders disappear

A few days ago, the WSJ published a new episode of Tech News Briefing titled How Mobile Chips Overtook Intel and I couldn't help but think that only a few decades ago, many experts would have doubted that giant chip maker Intel would lose massive market shares on the global computing market in only 10-15 years. Yet here we are while Intel is struggling to keep up.

Markets, fast and slow

Market leaders lose when the very market they dominate fundamentally changes its patterns and this is exactly what happened after the PC era when smartphone usage skyrocketed around the world to more than 4 billion devices globally.

Mobile phones vs. smartphones vs. PCs vs. tablets (via Benedict Evans)

Never before in human history did more people use technology on a daily basis than today which equally translates to a higher demand for electronic components to build these devices, including CPUs.

I'm not saying that Intel will become obsolete any time soon yet the stakes are high and the company did in fact miss on a major market shift, very similar to when Microsoft missed out on this very same shift.

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The VergeTom Warren

Markets are ever changing and hence constantly opening up new opportunities for companies who are able to identify underserved gaps. To take things further I would even argue that every company will become obsolete if the time axis is only long enough.

So the question that remains is: what will be Apple's »missing out« moment? What will be Amazon's? What will be Facebook's (and is it already looming on the horizon?)

Eventually it's up to us to find and exploit these gaps.