“The latest smartphone OS data from Kantar, for the three months ending March 2019, shows Android accounted for 79.3% of all smartphone sales across the five major European markets,” Dominic Sunnebo writes for Kantar. “iOS saw its share fall by two percentage points to 20.1% in Europe. However, the American market proved a brighter spot for Apple, as it boosted its US share in the quarter to 45.5%, an increase of 6.5 percentage points on the year.”
“iPhone XR was a strong performer for Apple this quarter, outselling the combined iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max in Europe and claiming the title of the best-selling model in Great Britain. In Europe, iPhone XR and iPhone XS/Max models both play an important role in managing Apple’s base – 16% of XS and XS Max buyers upgraded from an iPhone X, compared to less than 1% of iPhone XR buyers. As Smartphone prices rise rapidly, iPhone XR provides Apple with a way to keep its customers with older models continuing to upgrade regularly, and less tempted by the competition,” Sunnebo writes.
“In the US, Apple continued to dominate at a brand level, with the iPhone XR accounting for more than 1 in every 10 smartphones sold, while the Android carriers competed for market share,” Sunnebo writes. “In urban China, iOS’ share of the market fell by 0.4 percentage points, a reasonably robust performance given the intense competition from local brands Huawei & Xiaomi. Apple’s 2018 flagship, iPhone X, was the top selling model in the quarter, with the iPhone XS Max and the XR just making it into the top 10 best-selling devices. The price differential between Apple and the wider urban Chinese market also reduced in the latest period, with Apple average selling price falling by 2% year on year to ¥5698, against a market rise of 5%. This has helped cushion Apple from competitive pressure. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A strong showing for iPhone, and for iPhone XR in particular, overall!
Let’s hope that Apple has finally realised that there’s a ceiling on what people will pay for an optional piece of tech. Last years XS price madness must end, the resulting 6 month share price shock, proving it. Remember when Apple made an insanely great phone at like $599? Inflation doesn’t justify it all Tim. Greed has won.
Let me fix it for you, Kay. “… there’s a ceiling on what I will pay for” a new iPhone. Lots of folks bought and love their Xs and Xrs. Your point that the “6 month share price shock proves” that iPhone is overpriced is disproven by the data. All of the revenue shortfall was from China and due to macroeconomic factors, including trade tensions. And China was the ONLY significant region in the world where iPhone revenue declined year over year. Finally, Apple still makes insanely great iPhones for $599, less than that with trade-in. So your just poorly informed from soup to nuts.
China issue was obviously a red herring thrown by Apple to hide even more obvious overpricing issue.
YEP! I doubt it though.
Too true.
The XS Max should have been priced at the XS price $999.
The XS should have been $100 cheaper $899.
The XR should have been $699
The iPhone 8+ $599
The iPhone 8 $499
Whilst I agree that Apple are going a bit too high end in pricing, at the same time it’s not always as simple as just cutting $100 off the price and selling loads more. We’ve seen a slow down from loads of manufacturers so people just aren’t upgrading as often at any price. I don’t know the exact amount, but let’s be generous and say apple makes 40% on each phone, on a $1000 device if they knock off $100 they’ve got to then sell 33% more devices just to make the same profit they were before. At any level making it up on volume is not the answer. That’s not to say they shouldn’t have been cheaper, but there are different brackets and if they can’t move the price down to the next one they may as well leave it a bit higher as it won’t have a big enough influence on sales.
Clearly, Apple has pushed and can now see where mass market sales take place, vs high-end buyers (much, much smaller share).
Keep in mind, Touch ID was not a trivial spend initially, and FaceID was incredibly expensive, as were OLED displays (captive to Samsung for them).
This fall, Apple has the suppliers, and the the costs of their components down, to make a big push at the right price points.
2Q19:
iPhone XE coming before or at WWDC: $499
3Q19:
iPhone X(R): $699 (down $50 from today’s XR $749)
iPhone X(S): $899 (down $100 from today’s XS $999)
iPhone X(S)Max: $1049 (down $50 from today’s XS Plus $1099)
The names will be different, and I believe they’ll keep ALL three models in the lineup, as there is still a decent enough market for the high-end versions for those that want the best of the technologies.
Keep in mind, the XS and SX Max replacements are likely to be receiving a 3-camera setup, which many people will just want to have… It will deliver value to those upper end models.
The new XE will also be a hot seller taking out a lot of lower end players at the knees with a pocket-sized phone, but sporting an edge-to-edge display…
Late 2019 – 2020 will be a very strong 12 month run for iPhone, considering many are holding out longer before replacing, and the demand is becoming pent up for slightly better prices with all-new devices.
the XR is the marketing equivalent of a heat seating missile for Android entrenched countries exhibiting somewhat elastic demand… or think, the energy drink X games of iPhone… a great screen for playing games and consuming media.
I hadn’t planned on upgrading to an XR but my mother needed a new phone and it was decided it made more sense for me to hand her down my just under a year old 8 because she didn’t want anything bigger and it seemed slightly redundant to buy an older model or the same as I had. I’m so glad I did though. The battery life alone makes it worth having. I bought a load of inexpensive qi chargers and have them everywhere and even though they’re slow charging models I only need to top it up here and there and I get through the day without getting close to 50% let alone under that.
Apple is Doomed
😉
It’s really a nice and helpful piece of information. I am glad that you just shared this helpful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.