“On Tuesday, Apple is due to report its results for the March 2016 quarter (Q1 2016 according to the consistent calendar labeling I use for these things on this blog). A major focal point in the earnings report will be iPhone sales, which Apple has already guided will be down year on year,” Jan Dawson writes for Beyond Devices. “I’ve been contacted by quite a few reporters to ask – in various ways – whether this is bad news for Apple. The thought I’ve tried to articulate in response is that the current quarter is best seen in the context of what you might call the iPhone 6 blip.”
“Of course, what happened in late 2014 was that Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which did dramatically increase the addressable market for iPhones and drive significant Android switching. The result? A massive increase in the iPhone growth rate, to 46% in Q4 2014, 40% in Q1 2015, and 35% in Q2 2015,” Dawson writes. “For some, this was the new normal for Apple, driving sky-high growth rates in a product that had appeared headed for only modest growth in a saturating smartphone market. Now that the iPhone 6 year is past, however, we’ve seen the first flat year-on-year quarter for the iPhone, and are about to witness the first year on year decline. Hence all the calls from reporters about whether we’re witnessing some sort of crisis.”
Dawson writes, “The reality is that the iPhone 6 line really just caused a blip in the long-term trajectory of the iPhone.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Going into this year with an “S” model certainly didn’t help. No more ‘S’ models, Tim! Apple needs to launch all new iPhones every year.
As we wrote earlier this month:
Apple should strive to execute annual iPhone updates, in three display sizes if the SE is successful (which we think it will be), and drop the off-year “S” model concept. Apple is certainly big enough and rich enough to do a new iPhone family each and every year. Apple should have killed the tock year “S” model idea years ago.
What’s happened with iPhone is painfully obvious: Apple was at least a year (more likely two years) late with properly-sized iPhones. When iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus finally, blessedly materialized, buyers quite literally stampeded to get them. Then, when faced with such a “tough compare” this year, Apple was still sticking with their ill-conceived “S” model concept – making the tough compare much, much tougher.
The “iPhone 7” family – three models with the same case design and all with 3D Touch — comprised of the 4-inch iPhone 7 SE, the 4.7-inch iPhone 7, and the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus — should have debuted last September. That would have taken care of the current tough compare with iPhone 6/Plus. Then, this year, the iPhone 8 family, again with a new case design, but now waterproof, with dual cameras, etc. would debut this September. In 2017, perhaps Liquidmetal and AMOLED will be ready go for the iPhone 9. Etcetera. No more “S” years, Apple. Duh.
Had Apple done as we’ve just described, they’d have sold millions more iPhone units this year and millions upon millions more each year going forward.
Apple’s raison d’être is to delight customers. “S” model “tock” year iPhones do not delight customers in the same way as new “tick” year models. Obviously. They’re still the best smartphones on the planet, but they’re just okay. A bit of a meh. We all know that “S” models exist so Apple can wring out nice margins from existing designs and tooling, not expressly to delight customers. When Apple strays from its main goal is when things get wobbly. Just delight customers, Apple, and the world will beat a path to your door.
If we didn’t work for MacDailyNews, we’d have skipped the iPhone 6s Plus and held onto our iPhone 6 Plus units with no qualms – and we’re the most rabid Day One iPhone buyers you’ll ever find.
Why have an annual iPhone upgrade program, if you’re not going to wow us annually with new iPhones?
SEE ALSO:
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple’s 2017 iPhone to feature new ‘all glass’ enclosure – April 18, 2016
Ming-Chi Kuo: 2016 Apple Watch will be internal ‘s’ upgrade, major design changes to wait until 2017 – April 11, 2016
Where the iPhone SE fits in Apple’s iPhone lineup – March 10, 2016
Why Apple’s ‘iPhone SE’ should have had 3D Touch – March 10, 2016
KGI: Apple to release new 4-inch iPhone in early 2016; A9-powered, but no 3D Touch – November 4, 2015
No more ‘S’ models, Tim! Apple needs to launch all new iPhones every year – December 10, 2015
fantatic fora je to !
fantastic!
I have been on the ‘S’ upgrade cycle, and I plan on remaining on it for as long as there are ‘S’ models.
By the time the ‘S’ model arrives, the accessory industry has created zillions of designs of new cases, which are cheap and plentiful.
Unlike your rich American princesses, who started freaking out when Apple introduced their first ‘S’ phone (“Omigod! it looks the same as last year’s!! How are people going to know I have the latest phone!!!???”), for normal people, keeping the exact same appearance means having the abundance of accessories and peripherals designed for that shape/size.
Let us not forget, the ‘S’ models brought us Siri, Touch ID, 3D touch… One could easily argue that the most significant hardware features in the evolution of the iPhone came with the ‘S’ models.
Exactly this. Except for the iPhone 5, which my company bought, all my iPhones have been “S” and I could immediately choose from a variety of cases, and have a properly sized screen protector available.
Ditto! 3GS, 4S, 5S, 6S. ‘Nuff said.
@macdaily news……can’t agree with you on this one. I have no qualms with the ‘S’ model cycle. In fact, a new physical design evey year is unrealistic and from a point of assessories, (as has been pointed out), undesirable, to have to create a new eco system of assesories evey year. In fact, the thing is already flat and thin. How many design changes can you squeeze out of that without being arbitrary or capricious. Perhaps curved, but the ‘curve’ look takes up one of those years…what about the rest? A triangle? LOL. Oh, I know, how about a new physical design…like a watch? Oops, been there, done that. Part of the point here is that demanding that Apple go to some new ‘physical model’ every year smacks of the very thing that Steve Jobs was not fond of…that being: giving in to the demands of consumers and stockholders, instead of doing the right thing at the right time. I am the first one to scratch my head on some of their designs decisions, (power switch location on iPhone 6, one USB 3 port on MacBook instead of one on each side), but I will not second guess or pressure them about the ‘S’ year cycle.
I cannot oil the numbers come out and everybody is made to look like a fool for the 40th QTR in a row.
Actually, the ‘S’ model years may help the upgraders. One could argue that the two-year upgrade cycle matches rather well the two-year contracts that most carriers of the world impose. Annual cycles wouldn’t really get most people to upgrade any sooner, but they might get them to wait for the following year’s model, if it is to look different than current. So, a group of users (that treats the ‘S’ years as a minor ‘bump’ upgrade) steadies themselves on the form-factor upgrade cycle, while the other group of us (the ‘s’ upgraders) do this on the opposite cycle, smoothing out the two-year upgrade cycle, and making sure to discourage people from extending the cycle to three years or longer.
The reason for the blip is well known: size. Why try and conflate this with the “S” model regime? Apple are in the best position to know whether the current 2yr form factor cycle works – the rest of us can only guess. MDN is just sounding like a spoilt child “I want, I want, I want…”
If it makes sense to change the cycle Apple will do so.