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Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#71

Post by shmerl »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #69
shmerl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always room for improvement in hardware and software. And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often, so the drop in sales is not due to technology saturation, but due to more competition becoming better than Apple.

And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often You're joking, right? If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle. Why do all these phones' screen break so easy. Why are all the batteries so terrible. No, I disagree. Here in Australia, I know at least one carrier (Telstra) who will allow you to pay an additional amount (AU$149) 12 months in to a 24 month contract to allow you to upgra…

> If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle.

Competition. The fact that you don't need to upgrade doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to if you want to get something newer. Stronger competition forces them to move with good pace. Same as in for example regular PC hardware. Compare it to markets where competition is bad, like gaming consoles. There hardware release cycles are abysmally long.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#72

Post by drusepth »

sschueller wrote: post #57

Do we know if the lack of headphone jack has any effect on sales?

AFAIK all we have are anecdotes, but I know a half dozen friends that decided to "try Android" to keep their headphone jacks.

It's very possible they'll go back for the next iPhone iteration, but they didn't buy the 7 because of it.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#73

Post by georgemcbay »

narrator wrote: post #12

Are we at the end of an era computing wise or is it just Apple? I wonder if computing technologies great transformation of our society is coming to an end. I also thought this in about 1993 and then again in the mid 2000s, so I'm probably wrong again. Maybe AI will be the new killer app that drives the next wave of upgrades.

Phones are reaching (arguably have already reached a year ago) the point laptops reached a few years ago where it is becoming increasingly hard for even the earliest of adopters to justify upgrading more than every couple of years because the hardware differences just aren't very striking anymore.

I'm not sure AI is the best "cure" for this as generally the heavy lifting of what AI is currently present in phones (both from Apple and Google) is offloaded to remote servers anyway.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#74

Post by kmfrk »

narrator wrote: post #12

Are we at the end of an era computing wise or is it just Apple? I wonder if computing technologies great transformation of our society is coming to an end. I also thought this in about 1993 and then again in the mid 2000s, so I'm probably wrong again. Maybe AI will be the new killer app that drives the next wave of upgrades.

I see zero reason to upgrade my 5S. I just have not seen a compelling selling point for the later models compared to all the major overhauls phones like the 4 and 5 represented.

There's the form factor I guess, but everything just feels incremental or like basic maintenance right now.

A more realistic reason is probably saturation, a little like Facebook's user base. They're going to pursue new market rather than get people to replace their current phones from now on, I imagine.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#75

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

shmerl wrote: post #71
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often You're joking, right? If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle. Why do all these phones' screen break so easy. Why are all the batteries so terrible. No, I disagree. Here in Australia, I know at least one carrier (Telstra) who will allow you to pay an additional amount (AU$149) 12 months in to a 24 month contract to allow you to upgra…

> If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle. Competition. The fact that you don't need to upgrade doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to if you want to get something newer. Stronger competition forces them to move with good pace. Same as in for example regular PC hardware. Compare it to markets where competition is bad, like gaming consoles. There hardware release cycles are abysmally long.

Good point.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#76

Post by Spooky23 »

itg wrote: post #7

The numbers coming out of Apple next quarter will be interesting. iPhone 7 has been underwhelming and reception to the latest MacBooks Pros has been mostly negative. And if sales are on a downhill trajectory, I wonder what the response inside of Apple will be.

I thought the same thing about the MacBook because of what you hear in the tech echo chamber. The reality is that I t's mostly bullshit -- the notebooks have been selling extremely well. The disgruntled "pro" audience is mostly bullshit.

Intel isn't focusing very well on his category of product. Most of the PC OEMs have similar challenges -- faster laptops are bigger, have worse battery life and usually shittier screens.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#77

Post by more_corn »

My buddy has purchased every new iPhone on release day since the first version. Every new iPhone except the 7. He said "The one I have now is the last one I'll buy". He's not willing to give up the headphone jack. I expect there are many more like him so a 10% reduction in production is to be expected. To be fair the 7 is slick and nice in a lot of ways.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#78

Post by kctess5 »

baldfat wrote: post #45
rqebmm wrote: post #31

Normally I'm not a fan of clickbait headlines, but the authors totally whiffed on "Apple to decimate iPhone production in the new year"

Finally the historical use of the word Decimate. To remove 1 in 10. > The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning "removal of a tenth" - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/decimate In Ancient Rome if a Roman Army was to be disciplined for desertion or mutiny they would be decimated and 1 in 10 soldiers would be killed by the commanding officer. They would use lottery system to choice the ones to be whipped to the…

True! I just read about the "decimation of Aethelwulf" - the ninth century king of Wessex (current Great Britain) gave away a tenth of his empire in order to secure the kingdom during his pilgrimage to Rome.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelwulf#Decimation_Charter...

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#79

Post by Alupis »

Bud wrote: post #49
Alupis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The removed it because it was a proprietary port Apple is not shy when it comes to using proprietary ports - so I don't really buy this argument. We can look at the iPhone 7 and it's proprietary non-USB connector as clear evidence they don't mind running proprietary connectors.

>Apple is not shy when it comes to using proprietary ports - so I don't really buy this argument. There was not a single proprietary port on the old MB Pro, except for MagSafe, which isn't really even a port, but instead a power interface. Zero.

> There was not a single proprietary port on the old MB Pro, except for MagSafe

So somehow that means Apple hates proprietary ports?

Besides, the Thunderbolt ports might as well have been proprietary given the small number of non-apple devices that used them.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#80

Post by erdevs »

pwinnski wrote: post #6

That Apple might expect to sell fewer phones in the post-holiday quarter than the holiday quarter, that I buy. That sales are more sluggish than expected, I don't. At least not based on unsourced claims. I've seen reports like this so often that I don't think I'd know what to do if one didn't appear. And so far, they mostly happen on years that are later demonstrated to include record sales of the product we're told…

It isn't unsourced. They tell you the source in the article. This is from The Nikkei newspaper, as in The Nikkei Index. This is Japan's largest financial newspaper. It is original research performed by seasoned financial journalists. The Nikkei is actually the largest financial newspaper in the world, with a subscriber base of over 3M. Nikkei also owns the Financial Times among other assets. You've provided no reasonable basis whatsoever to doubt their journalism.

> I've begun to suspect that analysts literally make these up

In an era where patently false "news" pervades society, it does not help to blithely claim that real, reputable journalism is simply "made up". Also, this wasn't even an analyst firm, it is investigative journalism based on several primary sources with direct knowledge of the matters at hand.

Also, a quick Google search will provide more detail: http://www.usatoday.com/story/96001250/ ... Note how this journalist mentions that Apple has been hinting about this on recent quarterly calls.

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