Advertisment

Not the Apple of every eye today?

Sales in Q2 hit 74.8 million smartphones but future looks foggy

author-image
Pratima Harigunani
New Update
ID

USA: New reports are digetsing a record but also lower-than-expected first quarter kitty for Apple with 74.8 million smartphones, which is 0.4 per cent up from last year. Second-quarter sales are expected to fall towards a first-of-its-kind decline in 13 years as reckoned by experts.

Advertisment

Meanwhile China seems to be the hottest growth region for Apple.

Argus Insights' analysis of what is in store regarding ongoing demand for iPhones tells the same pattern, as CEO John Feland asserts that Apple has seen a slowdown in iPhone demand globally and that during the holiday season Apple actually endorsed what started off as ‘door buster’ price discounts and which evolved into recurring discounts.

In the fall of 2015, just prior to the launch of the iPhone 6S and 6S plus, Feland wrote a post describing a hypothesis that this might be the last quarter of Apple driving significant growth as both the number of consumers without a smartphone shrinks at a faster rate than the number of consumers without an iPhone.

Apple shocked the world when rumors were coming from across the ocean, from the land where all things Apple are made that they were being asked to scale back production by at least 30 per cent, he adds. "We were not shocked at Argus Insights. Not only have we been seeing the decline in Apple in the US for some time, we previously reported on the fact that the 2015 iPhone launches were indicated only a marginal increase in demand, he argued in a post."

Globally Feland is noting a slow-down in iPhone demand. "Of the regions we track, only China saw growth in iPhone demand where the demand for older handsets, 6 and 6 plus, outstripped the demand for new handsets on by almost 80 per cent. This suggests that Chinese consumers prefer the lower priced handsets of the prior generation over the new features available on the 6S and the 6S plus." Argus Insights' press update added.

apple tech-news