Because companies compete globally, not just locally?
Apple isn't building features to compete with Samsung only in the US. It's a global dynamic. Local competition is restricted to tiny subsets of features.
And it's only 57-42 for Apple in the US anyways. If it were 90-10 then sure. But 57-42 is what you get with strong competition. Having a majority doesn't mean there's a lack of competition. It just means one company is currently ahead, as one of them usually will be when there are two main players.
Sure if you're an ISP where you're the only choice in a neighborhood.
But I don't see much that's local about Apple vs. Samsung. It's the same phones for sale in the US or in Thailand. Literally as one-size-fits-all global as you can get.
> It's the same phones for sale in the US or in Thailand.
They actually aren't. US iPhones no longer have SIM card slots. Most international phones don't support the same radio bands that US carriers use. This used to be a bigger issue with CDMA, but still an issue with the many 4G/5G bands and VoLTE. That'll be most Xiaomi and Oppo phones in the US. And there's Huawei phones that are banned and not allowed on US carriers; so it makes zero sense to include them into any marketshare calculations for a US consumer.
So even an iPhone 16 Pro has different models: A3293 (International) A3083 (USA) A3292 (Middle East, Canada, Mexico) and A3294 (China, Hong Kong). The A3293 and the A3294 do not support T-mobile's 5G band 71. This isn't uncommon, and Samsung will do similar international vs US models. Samsung is even worse sometimes, having completely different CPUs between regions.
And of course there's software differences too. Chinese iPhones can disable internet permissions for individual apps but not anyone else for some reason. Google Pixel's Gemini isn't available in EU countries. Apple Intelligence did similarly at launch.
While local marketshare isn't the perfect indicator, it's definitely better than using global marketshare.
Apple isn't building features to compete with Samsung only in the US. It's a global dynamic. Local competition is restricted to tiny subsets of features.
And it's only 57-42 for Apple in the US anyways. If it were 90-10 then sure. But 57-42 is what you get with strong competition. Having a majority doesn't mean there's a lack of competition. It just means one company is currently ahead, as one of them usually will be when there are two main players.