Current Business Situation and Sales Projections
Apple’s iPhone is arguably the most popular and recognizable smartphone on the planet. Since its launch in 2007, the corporation has sold over 1.3 billion iPhones. Between the years 2001 and 2018, the stock price of Apple had increased by an impressive 15,000%, which makes the company’s current worth at $1 trillion. Apple has a strong global presence: 18% of all smartphones bought worldwide are iPhones, and the corporation earns 87% of all smartphone profits (“12 Apple statistics marketers should know in 2018,” 2018).
Haselton (2019) reports that for the fiscal third quarter of 2019, the company reported a revenue of $25.99 billion. Other sources such as Wall Street are estimating iPhone revenue to be at $26.31 billion.
While the metrics themselves are impressive at first glance, in actuality, they show a 12% decrease from the reported $29.47 billion when comparing year-over-year. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, however, expressed his optimism about the future of the company. He said he was encouraged by the popularity of in-store trade-in and finance programs with customers. According to Tim Cook, the active install base of the iPhone had reached an all-time high in 2019 (Haselton, 2019).
Apparently, Apple is trying to offset the concerning trend by focusing on providing more services to customers such as Apple TV Channels and Apple News + and upcoming products, Apple Card and Apple TV +. Besides, the company is offering better deals to those customers who trade their old iPhone for a new one.
As seen from these findings, the current situation is quite ambiguous, and it might be not exactly easy to make precise predictions. One great problem with forecasting iPhone sales is the quality of data available. Neil Cybart, the leading analyst at the Above Avalon, claims that the figures published by Apple itself do not add up. In particular, the analyst criticized Apple for withholding unit sales data, which must have been done for a reason. According to Cybart, iPhone sales are going worse than Apple lets the world know. Namely, iPhone shipments are crashing by one quarter, and Apple has lost as much as $1.5 billion in iPhone sales. Looking at these independent estimates, it is safe to assume that there is an observable downward trend that is likely to continue.
The Impact of Trends
IPhone sales numbers are impacted by a variety of political, economic, and social factors. One social trend that might be responsible for the decrease is the decline of consumerism. Canavan (2019) explains that the new generation is no longer attracted to passive consumption; instead, it is looking for enriching experiences. Besides, young people are concerned about the future of the planet and do not see it as ethically permissible to waste resources.
IPhone’s strategy to launch new models every year and encourage customers to trade their old phones for newer ones is not aligned with the environmentally aware, anti-consumerist public sentiment. Apart from broad tendencies, there are current events that hurt iPhone sales such as the outbreak of the new coronavirus in China. Feiner (2020) reports that Apple has lost about 5% from its all-time high Wednesday of $324.34 per share following the news about the epidemic. In summation, iPhone sales are likely to continue to be affected by overarching social tendencies as well as unpredicted events.
References
12 Apple statistics marketers should know in 2018. (2018). Web.
Canavan, B. (2019). Consumerism in terminal decline as millennials stay away from shops. Web.
Feiner, L. (2020). Apple is down more than 5% from all-time high on fears coronavirus could hurt iPhone sales.
Haselton, T. (2019). Apple’s iPhone sales miss estimates, down 12% versus last year.