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iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

nytimes.com

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Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#311

Post by taneq »

r00fus wrote: post #17
ericabiz wrote: post #4

I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…

I think the reason most 6S's are rose gold is that it's the new latest color - i.e. you want the latest, and also to message that to everyone else? Get a rose-gold phone. Also, considering probably the vast majority of servicing of iPhones happens at an Apple genius bar, I'd say your (very informative) views of the population have some selection bias.

Exactly. Apple is taking a leaf from the automotive industry's book, and starting to sell new phones explicitly as status symbols rather than based on new features. Expect new generations of iPhone to be much more visually distinct than the relatively subtle changes up til now.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#312

Post by taneq »

bsirkia wrote: post #47

Incredible that this is the first time in 13 years that Apple hasn't posted quarterly growth. I'm sure there will be lots of "Apple has lost its ability to innovate" articles based on this, but growing for the last ~52 straight quarters is insane. And I don't think one quarter without growth is enough evidence to conclude "Apple may be reaching the saturation point among potential customers in some countries" or "oth…

It's got to be largely a zero-sum game between Android and iOS at this stage.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#313

Post by godzillabrennus »

shawkinaw wrote: post #267
skywhopper wrote: post #105

It probably doesn't help that the subsidy model has completely changed. But personally, I think iPhone performance has hit a point where one doesn't really feel the need to upgrade right away. I was so ready to upgrade when the contract on my 4 expired. It was really a pain to use after a couple of years. But my 5S has now lasted me two and a half years and other than wishing I had more storage capacity, there's real…

Can anyone shed some light on why the subsidy model is going/has gone away? It seems to me cell providers would not want to stop essentially requiring 2-year contracts, so why have they? Fear of government action, or market competition? Or was the subsidy model actually bad for the networks somehow?

I speculate that it's a couple of things. First, carriers are putting out big capital outlays to the phone manufacturers to get customers on new phones either under a contract with a subsidy or a payment plan.

Second, the carriers are smart enough to realize that even with relatively old phones data usage is still pretty high. The carriers now make their money on metered data so they want to avoid the capital outlay required to subsidize a phone if they don't need to for customers to stay data hogs. T-Mobile provided a real world experiment that likely found attrition to be low enough even with contracts gone that it was worth removing the subsidy.

Tl;dr The carriers are cheap and don't want to lend you money for a new phone when you still pay them a lot to use your old one.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#314

Post by Retric »

r00fus wrote: post #265
Retric wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally did not upgrade from the 4s because the subsidy ended. Relatively the iPhone 6 vs 5 was an unusually big jump for Apple which confuses the issue.

Data >> anecdotes

Woosh. Sure, and the laws of supply and demand change when your talking about a phone. Cost up, demand down.

The point was in most peoples minds the iPhone 4 vs 5 jump was smaller than the 5 vs 6. And the 5 needed a new connector. So, we are stuck with an apples to apples to oranges comparison.

Samsung sales also dropped that's significant and they lack a stark A vs B model year comparison due to massive numbers of phones being regularly released. http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung-phones-9.php

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#315

Post by devsquid »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #125
madeofpalk wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring of course the fact that the most important parts of Android is not open source (Google Play Services, which is at the centre of a very misguided EU anti trust case), just because Android is 'open' it doesn't mean you can do more things on it. If something is possible on Android that's because of a design decision that Google took. Besides, what happens when you run iNot someone that you can't so on Android?…

The fact that you can load anything outside App store means a lot for advanced users. And I am not talking from OSS perspective. Besides, where have you seen OSS services? It doesn't even make sense.

Yea exactly its one of the reasons why I love Android so much.

Also the argument that Android isn't actually OSS argument is dumb. If it was closed source how have other companies forked it and successfully released their own variants? It doesn't make sense.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#316

Post by tjl »

ericabiz wrote: post #4

I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…

My parents only replaced their iPhone 5 when the battery wasn't holding a charge as well as they'd liked. So, they replaced it with a 5S (this was before the SE, but it was free with a contract anyway). They use it for calls and directions, but not much else so the 5S is more than adequate.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#318

Post by droopybuns »

taneq wrote: post #312
bsirkia wrote: post #47

Incredible that this is the first time in 13 years that Apple hasn't posted quarterly growth. I'm sure there will be lots of "Apple has lost its ability to innovate" articles based on this, but growing for the last ~52 straight quarters is insane. And I don't think one quarter without growth is enough evidence to conclude "Apple may be reaching the saturation point among potential customers in some countries" or "oth…

It's got to be largely a zero-sum game between Android and iOS at this stage.

I think that the boomers retiring with no more company-paid cell phone is a small market that is expanding.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#319

Post by petra »

okc wrote: post #171

I only see it as a matter of time before brands like Xiaomi make cheaper and better products for sale beyond their current dominance in 'developing countries'. We need to catch up.

There was recently a story saying $400 smartphones are almost as good as flagships. Also huawei is attacking the american market with a great $200 phone.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#320

Post by jsz0 »

The concerning part of this is how little Apple did to get ahead of the market saturation problem before it started impacting sales. They had plenty of warning. Analysts have been predicting this for years. They waited way too long to release iPhones with larger displays. Then it takes more than a year to update the 4" model and when they do it gets released with a nearly identical enclosure to a 3 year old phone. Current rumors suggest the iPhone 7 may share a very similar design to the iPhone 6/S which is just baffling to me if true. When market saturation is a problem it seems like the absolute worst thing you could do is keep recycling 2-3 year old designs.
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