iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years • Hacker News Board

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#31

Post by kvn_95 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #18

kvn_95 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also the opting for the nuclear option when faced with defending their 30% app store commissions. I love Apple devices, but at some point no one can afford them anymore. Strangely, I noticed that this has happened before when Steve Jobs left Apple for the first time. At that point, Apple's product lineup keep getting more complex and more expensive, until Jobs came back and cut both the product count and pricing…

The SE and even the 11 seem fairly affordable. The pro versions seem fairly pointless imo. You also have the option of buying a second a second hand older model. Even the iphone X is faster than current year androids.

At the rate of their price increase, buying 2nd hand will soon be the only option left to get Apple devices.

You know something is not right when their own website start to list trade-in prices. I mean, this is a phone, not a car.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#32

Post by smabie » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:16 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #8

nabaraz wrote: post #5

The upcoming 5G should jump-start this trend again.

Why? I think 4G LTE is more than fast enough, if available.

It doesn't really matter, people want 5G. There's also the standard argument that when 5G becomes standard, new applications will arise. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but that's also kind of the point. People in the 90s probably couldn't imagine graphics cards enabling a deep learning either.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#33

Post by lmedinas » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:18 AM UTC

altdatathrow wrote: post #11

That's why they created airpods, watches, homepods and the forthcoming airtags and glasses. Those items don't get purchased standalone; they're part of the iphone experience. Analyzing iphone sales without accessory sales is missing the point.

i stopped reading ZDNet since years specially due to their useless articles about Linux and Opensource. I think this is another "useless" article.

As you said, its pretty obvious the Smartphone market is full, Apple since years looked for other ways to monetize. Thats why now Apple services have more earnings than iPhones. Apple strategy now is to keep the customer at home buying watches, headphones, tablets, Music etc... etc...

Regarding the sale of iPhones itself it would make sense to compare it per regions and against other competitors like Samsung and Xiaomi. I suspect they sale way more phones smaller and less income markets.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#34

Post by coldtea » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #15

nobrains wrote: post #9

Off topic: Do you consider $99 $499 $1999 $99.99 etc. pricing to be unethical?

Why would it be? Rounding up is not a surhuman effort and if someone gets tricked by that they probably have bigger issues in life.

Apparently it is a superhuman effort -- else those companies wouldn't be using this trick.

Rounding up might be easy. Getting rid through the act of rounding up the instictual psychology that "this is less than the round" is not easy at all, might even be near impossible at the feelings level.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#35

Post by diminish » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

iphone unit sales declining was a well known secret - this is the reason why apple stopped reporting unit sales and bragged about services and average revenue per customer.

This may have interesting consequences with a pending cliff fall especially if some other killer trend comes up.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#36

Post by nottorp » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #17

The numbers on chart 1 and chart 2 do not match at all, even though they are supposed to be the same, just with different scalings. One has 2015 unit sales below 200 million, the other has it above 220 million. one has the trend line drawn from 2016 and the other starting in 2015. I think a good rule of thumb is to say, if the writer can't see that they made two completely different trend lines for the same thing, ri…

I thought of "how to lie with statistics" when he changed the scale.

Also, as several other posters have said, phones have stagnated a bit. Not as bad as desktop computers, but they're going there.

The last time I changed my iPhone was because the daughter completely ruined hers, and she needed a new hand-me-down.

The last time I changed my iPhone because of a new feature was with the 5S i think. Or whenever they introduced answering phone calls on your laptop.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#37

Post by wilsonfiifi » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

Perhaps if they made physical dual sim phones widely available (and not just in China and Hong Kong) they might be able to lure more users. In my corner of the globe, a significant number of people have more than one SIM so Purchasing an iPhone is not very cost efficient. And even if you do have the means to purchase a second device it will most likely be a cheaper android phone. Eventually you’ll come to realize that android isn’t that bad compared to iOS and at times it even does things better. So your next logical upgrade purchase will be a high end dual sim android phone.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#38

Post by lmedinas » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #21

tboughen wrote: post #10

I was disappointed that the article ends with “ Apple is losing new iPhone users at a drip-drip-drip pace” without considering how long a user is keeping their phone or why. I would have thought the number of iPhone users continues to rise even though annual unit sales are falling, due to the longevity of the devices. I’m typing this on my nearly 3 year old iPhone X and don’t intend to replace it until 2021 at the ea…

If you take a look at the ios device support charts you can see that the trend is that every iphone gets 1 year more support than the device before it. My 2014 ipad is getting the upcoming update while 2 year old android devices get cut off and budget models never get updates. I got this 2014 ipad second hand recently and it works more than well enough. I expect this is a big reason for a drop in sales.

I don't think this is the only reason for that statement. I think Android phones, specially the cheaper brands, are selling way more than iPhones in new and less income markets in Asia and Africa. Apple has very few chances in thoese markets and the rich markets have already many iPhones still working.

Therefore Apple strategy is to sell other hardware complementary to the iPhone and Internet services.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#39

Post by bad_user » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #32

m0zg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I think 4G LTE is more than fast enough, if available.

It doesn't really matter, people want 5G. There's also the standard argument that when 5G becomes standard, new applications will arise. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but that's also kind of the point. People in the 90s probably couldn't imagine graphics cards enabling a deep learning either.

5G is primarily targeted at IoT. New applications yes, but those applications won't necessarily be for phones.

Unless bandwidth prices for 5G get dramatically lower than 4G (unlikely, because I don't see mobile operators discriminating subscriptions like that), then 5G won't have much of an impact on phone owners.

Re: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

#40

Post by asciident » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

wilsonfiifi wrote: post #37

Perhaps if they made physical dual sim phones widely available (and not just in China and Hong Kong) they might be able to lure more users. In my corner of the globe, a significant number of people have more than one SIM so Purchasing an iPhone is not very cost efficient. And even if you do have the means to purchase a second device it will most likely be a cheaper android phone. Eventually you’ll come to realize tha…

What's the point of sim cards anyways? I'm not sure why it's needed when things can be done over software. It feels like an antiquated piece of technology. Like just use the phone identifier or something, and map it to a digital sim.