iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-an-interesting-chart-iphone-unit-sales-have-been-declining-steadily-for-five-years/

by SyneRyder • 6 years ago

26 59 6 years ago

pjmlp3• 6 years ago

That is to be expected, most of the world doesn't do contracts, the phones already do what 99% want from such a device, and most new features look like pointless gimmicks without much relevance for most public.

This applies to Android as well.

colordrops• 6 years ago

the phones already do what 99% want from such a device

Until a technological limit is broken through that opens up new possibilities. If I imagine the perfect device, it wouldn't even be a physical tablet shaped device I need to hold in my hand. Better voice recognition and understanding of natural language commands and some breakthrough in display tech that doesn't require a glass screen could change the game. Yes, the current form of phones is near optimal, but it's a local optimum, and someone will jump out of it and eat Apples lunch at some point.

tjchear• 6 years ago

I'm quite fond of the telepathic mode of communication shown in Ghost in the Shell. Between now and mass adoption of Neuralink (if it happens...), I imagine there'd be a neck-worn device that can read off the neural signals going to our throat and allows us to operate devices/communicate through subvocalization [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition

xlii2• 6 years ago

I’m probably part of that crowd. As a geek I wanted to have the newest and the shiniest for years. But currently iterations are boring. There is no novelty. Since I’m the payer for the phones of my family if I don’t see the point there are usually at least few sales per year on phone alone that are lost here. It’s anecdotal but based on my talks with friends it’s the same for them.

theshrike79• 6 years ago

We passed the revolutionary phase of phone development years ago, each yearly release is a slight evolution on the previous one.

But what us bleeding edge geeks tend to forget is that the releases aren't really aimed at the people who buy a new phone every year.

To the user whose phone went into EOL because of the new release, the 5 year jump in features is HUGE.

Yetanfou• 6 years ago

Yes, this. I find it far more satisfying to take older devices, put the latest AOSP-derived distribution on them and make them work just as well as new ones than to just buy... buy... buy... to follow the 'trend'...

awat• 6 years ago

Interesting, probably at least partially explains the gobs of money they are throwing at content production.

kvn_952• 6 years ago

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 back to sensible levels.

This time, there is no one that can go back there and do that anymore. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

ineedasername2• 6 years ago

Yes, it used to be a single phone a year, pricier options were just for storage. Maybe that was too far in one direction, I don't know. But now it seems like too many, and I couldn't even tell you the real difference between the options, much less why I should spend $1500 on one of them when I can a 1.5 year old android flagship for $400 with CPU & GPU benchmarks only a little less that theirs, which is all I really care about: snappy response for page loads, video streaming, gaming, reasonably good camera & video quality.

Polylactic_acid5• 6 years ago

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.

agumonkey• 6 years ago

That's one theory that has been thrown. It's pretty sensible. The hardware and software does a ton already .. every year seems like tweaking absurd performance counters already.

nabaraz• 6 years ago

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

m0zg2• 6 years ago

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

dpcan2• 6 years ago

Because people will eventually build for 5G.

And then your 4G LTE won't be fast enough.

smabie• 6 years ago

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.

nobrains• 6 years ago

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

dpcan2• 6 years ago

No, because you are still making the same financial commitment in the end, and the buyer will be aware of that decision.

This pricing technique is just to make someone look.

So, if this is unethical, so is a brightly lit sign, or a couple well-placed adjectives in a sales pitch.

tasogare• 6 years ago

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.

read_if_gay_2• 6 years ago

It does not follow that you have huge personal issues if you mistake a 59.99 price tag for 50 dollars and make a purchase, when you would’ve reconsidered it at $60. If that didn’t happen often enough, it wouldn’t be common practice.

coldtea• 6 years ago

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.

chance_bear2• 6 years ago

Perhaps, but there is a small benefit to the consumer. A whole number can indicate the brand is positioned towards upper-class consumers and that a price conscious consumer should look for cheaper alternatives.

It’s not a significant benefit, restaurants are the best application I can think of, but the harm that occurs from it is similarity miniscule.

bad_user5• 6 years ago

Yes it is unethical, because it's there to trick people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing

tboughen• 6 years ago

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 earliest (and then give it to my son!).

*edited typo

Polylactic_acid5• 6 years ago

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.

lmedinas2• 6 years ago

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.

watt• 6 years ago

I think so as well. Having been so impressed with the longevity of our current devices (old SE), my next phone also will be Apple's. My Samsung S8+ has served me well, but Samsung has no clue how to play the software game.

altdatathrow• 6 years ago

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.

lmedinas2• 6 years ago

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.

wodenokoto• 6 years ago

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, right next to each-other, there is probably a lot of things the writer did not notice in the numbers. Best not to spend time on their conclusions.

HugThem• 6 years ago

After one hour and 23 comments, you are the first one to notice it.

Shows that even on HN, the vast majority only reads the headline of an article.

oefrha• 6 years ago

I think 2014 unit sales was repeated as the 2015 number in the first chart. 2015 was historically the strongest, the second chart might be correct.

What’s more wrong about the article is the conclusion, that Apple is losing new iPhone users. It does not and cannot follow from the numbers at all.

nottorp3• 6 years ago

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.

Animats• 6 years ago

After they come out with a 6.5" phone, they will need a clothing line with bigger pockets.

diminish• 6 years ago

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.

wilsonfiifi• 6 years ago

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.

asciident• 6 years ago

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.

nottorp3• 6 years ago

It decouples the carrier from the phone manufacturer.

I'd rather swap sims than beg Apple to change my carrier. Maybe to one they don't yet support.

Of course, you need an unlocked phone for this, but in the poorer countries most people are on prepaid not contract, and their phones are unlocked from the start.

Polylactic_acid5• 6 years ago

I have wondered the same thing. I just did a search and all I can find is uninformed speculation about how its "more secure" or because its required as part of the mobile technology. None of it seems correct and my guess is there is just no push for esim because every phone has to have a sim tray for compatibility and every carrier gives out a sim because everyone has a sim tray and knows how to use it.

bad_user5• 6 years ago

This is natural. iPhones have a really long life, and the improvements are marginal.

I actually wanted to get off the iOS train, as I hate its restrictions, yet I just bought a new iPad, because my other 5 year old iPad Pro and my iPhone 8 are still being updated, and still running fine with no performance issues.

Apple's devices age well. And it's why I became their customer, despite not liking their philosophy for iOS, as I refuse to get on the 2-year upgrade treadmill forced by others (e.g Samsung).

pjmlp3• 6 years ago

What upgrade treadmill? Most people use pre-paid phones until they either break down or get stolen.

Most non-techies that I know don't even have updates enabled, because they don't want UI to change under their feet (typical users where E icon == Internet).

bad_user5• 6 years ago

"Most people use pre-paid phones until they either break down or get stolen."

Reference please. My personal impression is that most people buy subsidized phones, as part of the contract, every 2 years when the renewal is up.

If you have better data than my anecdote, I'm all ears.

The Android devices that I've had, and that my family has had, stopped receiving major updates, and even security patches, after only 1 year.

So first of all, I don't care what other people do, I can't use devices that are no longer upgraded with security patches. Meanwhile iPhone 6s is getting upgraded to iOS 14.

Also, low end Androids stop being usable after about 2 years, either because apps become too slow, or because the battery is affected. And even the high end phones have hardware issues much faster than my iPhones. I've had two Galaxy S phones in my household, after 2 years one had a damaged motherboard and the other had a battery dying on us.

These devices are designed for obsolescence. And many people are actually spending more money on those lower end Androids than if they got a higher end iPhone and keep it for 6 years.

My 3 year old iPhone 8 still has a battery that's in top shape BTW, with no performance issues.

iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

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