“As Apple Inc. prepares to introduce its latest iPhones next week, the company’s biggest challenge is one of its making: how to top its own success,” Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Apple’s bigger-screen iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, introduced a year ago, reignited sales growth for Apple’s smartphone, propelled the company to record profits and solidified Apple’s standing in China. Apple has been gaining share versus rivals, despite its more expensive offerings. IPhone unit sales grew more than 30% in each of the past three quarters, compared with a year earlier.”
“Now, comes the hard part. Such growth rates are ‘mathematically unsustainable,’ said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Bernstein Research. He forecasts iPhone sales to grow 3% to 237.6 million units in the fiscal year starting October,” Wakabayashi reports. “‘It’s highly debatable whether there will be any iPhone growth next year,’ said Mr. Sacconaghi. ‘The market realities will catch up with Apple.'”
MacDailyNews Take: If “it’s highly debatable whether there will be any iPhone growth next year,” Toni, then why are you forecasting 3% iPhone sales growth? Ladies and gentlemen: Wall Street “logic.”
“One reason: The changes in the newest iPhones won’t be as dramatic as last year, when Apple offered larger-screen models for the first time. Apple is expected to unveil the new phones at an event Sept. 9 in San Francisco,” Wakabayashi reports. “The results of the past year set a high bar. iPhone revenue grew at its fastest rate in two years, at a time when the rest of the smartphone market was starting to slow.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No worries.
iPhone “S” years usher in hugely significant features, such as oleophobic displays, significant GPU improvements, world phone capability, Siri personal assistant, video stabilization, panorama photos, 64-bit processors, TD-LTE support, and Touch ID, among other improvements and additions.
This year will be about cameras, 7000 series aluminum, and Force Touch (or whatever they decide to call it going forward) and it will be more important than people like Toni Sacconaghi think. (Hey, Toni, did you ever find your “missing” iPhones?) As with every new iPhone before them, Apple’s next-gen iPhones will become the best-selling iPhones yet.
SEE ALSO:
Revealed: How Force Touch works and feels in Apple’s next-gen iPhone 6s – August 10, 2015
Apple’s Force Touch: The future of mobile interfaces – August 4, 2015
Why Force Touch on the iPhone will be awesome – July 29, 2015
Apple’s Force Touch iPhone 6s to be major differentiator, put rivals at further disadvantage – July 6, 2015
Apple assemblers begin making next-gen iPhones with Force Touch – June 27, 2015
Analyst: Apple’s ‘iPhone 6s’ to feature stronger 7000 series aluminum, slightly thicker for Force Touch – June 17, 2015
Apple’s new Force Touch patent application reveals stylus, virtual paint brush, 3D buttons interactions – May 28, 2015
Apple’s forthcoming iOS 9 supports ‘iPhone 6s’ Force Touch – May 26, 2015
Apple patent application reveals work on Force Touch for iOS devices and more – March 5, 2015
Force Touch rumored to arrive exclusively on ‘iPhone 6s Plus’ – April 2, 2015
Apple’s next-gen iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus to feature Force Touch – February 28, 2015