
iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years - SyneRyder
https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-an-interesting-chart-iphone-unit-sales-have-been-declining-steadily-for-five-years/
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wodenokoto
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.

~~~
nottorp
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.

------
tboughen
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_acid
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.

~~~
lmedinas
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.

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pjmlp
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.

~~~
xlii
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
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.

~~~
xlii
You're totally right. My mom absolutely loves her phone and yearly, iterative
upgrades are godsend to her. And that's why i think Apple went into other
devices to please gadget-loving crowd, such as watch or headphones.

I think that would explain decline in sales. Stage has been set and the
movement is rather small between the platforms.

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altdatathrow
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.

~~~
lmedinas
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.

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bad_user
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).

~~~
pjmlp
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_user
> " _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.

------
wilsonfiifi
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
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.

~~~
nottorp
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.

~~~
nottorp
> The obvious solution is that sim is replaced with a username and password

That would still go through the phone manufacturer? Or maybe not, but in that
case it would require changing how all the cell phone networks work. Not going
to happen soon.

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

~~~
kvn_95
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.

~~~
ineedasername
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.

~~~
oarsinsync
> 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.

How many more months of security updates do you anticipate receiving on that
device. Are security updates a priority for you?

(Written on my $450, in 2016, 4 year old iPhone SE, which I am considering
upgrading for the new $450 iPhone SE in 2020)

~~~
ineedasername
I am less concerned about security updates on Android phones these days
because a great deal of the relevant updates take place in the Google services
that are now updated through their normal app store updates. For example, a
recent s curity bulletin I came across said the latest security update would
fix it, but it would also be caught by Google Play Protect as well, so even if
my phone no longer received official updates I'd still be protected from the
major source of vulnerabilities: installed apps.

~~~
oarsinsync
I was not aware of this, and this is super useful context, thank you!

------
diminish
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.

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

~~~
m0zg
Why? I think 4G LTE is more than fast enough, if available.

~~~
smabie
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.

~~~
bad_user
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.

~~~
m0zg
What _is_ IoT in the first place?

~~~
bad_user
Traditionally dumb devices that are streaming telemetry / sensor data to, and
possibly receving commands from, a central server.

5G is supposedly better for the use-case because it should support more
connections, it should have less latency, and the devices should use less
power for staying connected.

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

~~~
tasogare
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_
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.

~~~
chance_bear
Whether a price is $59.99 or $60.00 conveys a notable degree of information to
the consumer. I wouldn’t be quick to assume it’s taking advantage of people’s
innumeracy.

~~~
read_if_gay_
If you look closely enough, that is. It’s happened to me that I saw a useful
product, only remembered its rounded down price when later discussing a
potential purchase with my girlfriend, decided to buy, then realized I fell
victim to this sales tactic. I imagine that happens a lot more often than
someone getting useful information out of the price tag (not) ending in 99.
It’s not a big deal either way, just a bit dishonest IMO.

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

