“Following Apple’s wildly successful iPhone 6 product cycle, which began in the second half of 2014, Apple has struggled to grow iPhone unit shipments significantly in subsequent cycles,” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “The iPhone 6s cycle saw iPhone unit shipments drop significantly year over year, while the iPhone 7 cycle saw unit shipments inch upward from the levels seen during the iPhone 6s cycle (though they were still well below the levels seen during the iPhone 6 cycle).”
Eassa writes, “It’s not looking like the current iPhone product cycle, which consists of the iPhone 8 series as well as the iPhone X, is going to be much better on the unit shipment front.”
“Part of that can, of course, be attributed to a weakening overall smartphone market — Apple isn’t immune to industry trends. However, another part of it may be that Apple’s most interesting product — iPhone X — came at a price point that was inaccessible to many potential iPhone buyers, while the products that Apple offered at more traditional price points were simply updated versions of the same basic designs that Apple introduced with the iPhone 6 series smartphones in 2014,” Eassa writes. “So, I think that investors who had previously expected the current product cycle to be a big product cycle in the vein of the iPhone 6 cycle in 2014 will be disappointed.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We won’t know for sure until we see this quarter’s (Apple’s fiscal Q218) results in May, since iPhone sales actually did increase YOY when you compare apples to apples, as opposed to comparing the 13-week 2017 holiday quarter to a 14-week 2016 holiday quarter and calling it a “decline,” when it wasn’t.
iPhone X was the best-selling smartphone in the world in the December quarter according to Canalys, and it has been our top selling phone every week since it launched. iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus rounded out the top three iPhones in the quarter. In fact, revenue for our newly launched iPhones was the highest of any lineup in our history, driving total Apple revenue above our guidance range… The iPhone X was the most popular and that’s particularly noteworthy given that we didn’t start shipping until early November, and we’re constrained for a while. The team did a great job of getting into supply demand balance there in December. But since the launch of iPhone X, it has been the most popular iPhone every week, every week sales. And that is even through today, actually through January… We feel fantastic, particularly as it pertains to iPhone X. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, February 1, 2018
SEE ALSO:
Ignore the iPhone X naysayers – March 10, 2018
Will the naysayers admit they were wrong about Apple’s iPhone X? – February 5, 2018