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Decline in iPhone Shipments Could Make Apple Worst-Performing Top 5 Smartphone Brands

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wachie

Member
Macrumors - http://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/24/apple-declining-iphone-shipments-2016/
Apple's global iPhone shipments will fall short of analysts' consensus estimates of 210 to 230 million units in the 2016 fiscal year, according to a new research note issued by respected KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a worst case scenario, iPhone shipments in 2016 are expected to reach just 190 million units, which is an 18% reduction in shipment growth and 3 million fewer iPhones than Apple sold in 2014.

Even in a best case scenario, said Kuo, Apple is expected to sell 205 million units, 5 million short of the lower end of analysts' estimate range and amounting to a 11.6% reduction in growth. Regardless of the best or worst case scenario, Kuo predicts Apple will underperform the industry and become the only global top-five smartphone brand to see shipments decline in 2016.

Kuo's note predicts that out of Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo, only Apple will see shipments fall year-on-year, which suggests to KGI Securities that the decline in iPhone sales can't be solely blamed on industry structure.
Kuo is quite spot-on so I guess Apple hit it's iPhone peak. Unless there is another big phone related innovation on the horizon, Apple will look to iWatch, iTV, Apple Car or something else?
 

Jonnax

Member
"Just 190 million units"
I get it if you're an investor looking for growth.
But comparing a manufacturer possibly selling 20 million then selling 22 the year after to Apple is silly.
 

SwolBro

Banned
when you're paying a premium and still getting 16gb base models with no expansion options what do you think is going to happen?

The iphone is mainly a North American product. When i travel i rarely see iphones anywhere else. In some areas they're pretty much just a status symbol.

They need to change up. It's getting ridiculous.
 

billeh

Member
Seems like we're right on time for another false scare to get people to dump their Apple stocks.

I feel like the hardware is fine, a shakeup software side might help.
 

GAMEPROFF

Banned
Great discussion. That's not the point of this thread.

Cant count the numbers of times Ive read people telling in the Internet that Peak iPhone is reached.

Its the Nintedo has to go Thirdparty of Smartphones.

Edit:
Kuo has been 44% accurate in his past Apple predictions:
http://ped30.com/2016/04/24/apple-ming-chi-kuo-truthiness/
RG0BS1U.gif
 

wachie

Member
Cant count the numbers of times Ive read people telling in the Internet that Peak iPhone is reached.

Its the Nintedo has to go Thirdparty of Smartphones.
I cant vouch for people. But the last time I tried to argue that the iPhone peak was reached, people laughed me off, then the numbers came in and those people had to shut up.

Kuo has been 44% accurate in his past Apple predictions:
http://ped30.com/2016/04/24/apple-ming-chi-kuo-truthiness/
Since that is behind a paywall, I dont know the metric they use to reach those accuracy numbers. Their profile on Kuo lines up with my opinion of him.

"AppleInsider refers to him as “noted” and “well-connected.” 9to5Mac has taken to using the honorific “reliable.” MacRumors calls him “the respected Ming-Chi Kuo.” Asymco‘s Horace Dediu refers to what Kuo does as industrial espionage."
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
when you're paying a premium and still getting 16gb base models with no expansion options what do you think is going to happen?

The iphone is mainly a North American product. When i travel i rarely see iphones anywhere else. In some areas they're pretty much just a status symbol.

They need to change up. It's getting ridiculous.

can't easily do that as most other phones have super low ASP and the margins aren't there. Apple could easily sell their current phones at a much lower price in those markets but you'd risk reverse imports or the eroding of the price in their primary markets.
 
Great discussion. That's not the point of this thread.

Lighten up, pls.

It makes sense for growth to reduce with those premium prices. Some of the phones my friends have bought that cost 400-600 are great. Expandable memory, great quality cameras and the like.

I like my 6s plus but man, $400 smartphones used to be trash. The market is definitely changing. I'm probably not going to get another iPhone unless there's a big change up, and the removal of the headphone jack is looking at things the wrong way IMO.

Edit; should mention most iPhones are up around $1k in Aus.
 

SwolBro

Banned
Seems like we're right on time for another false scare to get people to dump their Apple stocks.

if you don't see a decline in apple, you're blind or naive. the company hasn't put out a decent new product in how long? actually, to me they still seem to be doing catch up to their competitors.

lets go over some of their crap

1. iphones still coming in base models of 16gb with no expansion options.
2. their cloud services and integration between devices are still a mess
3. ipads are essentially unchanged while the competition soars with innovations
4. ios is playing catch up to android and now even windows
5. Osx is starting to lag behind windows, LAG BEHIND WINDOWS, think about this
6. itunes is horrific and purchase of beats has not made any real dent into spotify
7. apple tv, although improved, is still not better than offerings from amazon or roku
8. iwatch is an utter failure


the list can really go on here but i'll stop. there's no innovation coming from this company, anywhere, in any department. We can argue that their form factor and style is still above everyone else but how long is this going to keep them differentiated? i love my macair, i enjoy my iphone 6 and they are built with quality but so what? this isn't early 2000s, the competition has been building well made computers and mobile devices for the last 5+ years.
 

numble

Member
Since that is behind a paywall, I dont know the metric they use to reach those accuracy numbers. Their profile on Kuo lines up with my opinion of him.

"AppleInsider refers to him as “noted” and “well-connected.” 9to5Mac has taken to using the honorific “reliable.” MacRumors calls him “the respected Ming-Chi Kuo.” Asymco‘s Horace Dediu refers to what Kuo does as industrial espionage."

So your opinion is that he should be referred to with sarcasm quotes?
 
In some areas they're pretty much just a status symbol.

They are in North America too, just in some crazy inverted sense. It's more so that lacking an iPhone is lacking status than having an iPhone equates to having status, if that makes any sense.

It can only work against your perceived status, not in favor of it like other status symbols.
 

Timbuktu

Member
They have missed their schedule this year. The development they need just isn't ready for the annual update this year.
 

V1LÆM

Gold Member
no wonder. they are great phones to use but apple is ripping people off.

they advertise the iphone 6s as from £539 but that's just for 16GB. this phone shoots 12mp photos and 4k 30fps video. apps are getting bigger. icloud/apple music helps a little but 16gb just isn't good enough. so you feel forced to go for the 64GB model which is another £80 taking it to £619.

£619 is the starting price of the 16GB iPhone 6S+ and yet again it's just not enough so you're paying £700. i had a 6S+ but ended up returning it. like i said, they are good phones but just not £700 good.

there are phones out there that are just as good but don't cost as much. personally i'll be going with the Galaxy S7 phone or waiting for new Nexus phones.
 

Garou

Member
All this 16GB talk is just some indirect form of price-complaining. It's not as if Apple doesn't sell any other sizes.
 

Majine

Banned
Wonder if we'll see a price hike then.

When iPad growth slowed down they went up in price to offset that loss. Now the new 9.7 inch iPad costs 599 instead of the usual 499.
 

SwolBro

Banned
They are in North America too, just in some crazy inverted sense. It's more so that lacking an iPhone is lacking status than having an iPhone equates to having status, if that makes any sense.

It can only work against your perceived status, not in favor of it like other status symbols.
it does make sense, i know exactly what you mean.

no wonder. they are great phones to use but apple is ripping people off.

they advertise the iphone 6s as from £539 but that's just for 16GB. this phone shoots 12mp photos and 4k 30fps video. apps are getting bigger. icloud/apple music helps a little but 16gb just isn't good enough. so you feel forced to go for the 64GB model which is another £80 taking it to £619.

£619 is the starting price of the 16GB iPhone 6S+ and yet again it's just not enough so you're paying £700. i had a 6S+ but ended up returning it. like i said, they are good phones but just not £700 good.

there are phones out there that are just as good but don't cost as much. personally i'll be going with the Galaxy S7 phone or waiting for new Nexus phones.

And this is why people in most countries don't buy iphones. it's absurd. Apple could charge premiums before because their products were some of the only products actually built with quality in mind. This isn't the case anymore. Everyone is building nice looking, nice feeling products now. The market has caught up. Actually, the market has surpassed it. Android OS can do everything IOS can, plus added expandability and customization.

It feels like Apple is building products with only the San Francisco residence in mind.
 

wachie

Member
When was that last time?
Knock yourself out - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1166543

When I posted the thread about production cuts, there were people vehemently claiming it wont happen. I can find other instances but too lazy this early in the morning.

So your opinion is that he should be referred to with sarcasm quotes?
I didnt know there were sarcasm quotes floating around, I thought that site (sketchy as it is - without knowing it's ranking metrics) was quoting those sites.
 

numble

Member
Knock yourself out - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1166543

When I posted the thread about production cuts, there were people vehemently claiming it wont happen. I can find other instances but too lazy this early in the morning.


I didnt know there were sarcasm quotes floating around, I thought that site (sketchy as it is - without knowing it's ranking metrics) was quoting those sites.

How is Philip Elmer DeWitt sketchy? He did very good scorecards for analysts when he was at Fortune, which was strictly fact-based:
http://fortune.com/2014/10/21/apple...rter-the-amateurs-called-it-the-pros-blew-it/

You'll see there and in other scorecards at Fortune that KGI and Ming-Chi Kuo are not known for their earnings and sales estimates. Kuo is known more for his discussion of upcoming features.

The article is obviously quoting sarcastically when it is putting those quotes up next to a 56% incorrect prediction rate.
 

GAMEPROFF

Banned
Knock yourself out - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1166543

When I posted the thread about production cuts, there were people vehemently claiming it wont happen. I can find other instances but too lazy this early in the morning.

Between posting a news about Production cuts - Which actually makes sense for me, I dont see a point in buying a more expensiver 6s either when the 6 is still around and beeing the next person who proclaims peak iPhone is a lot.
Also, your source has already been proofed beeing far from spot-on.

And doesnt help that the usuall Apple is doomed!!!! News comes weekly since 2009.

Poor Apple is doomed just one Flagline iPhone after their recordselling iPhone 6 line. It must really suck to work in this company, either you break records every year with every iPhone or people claiming that you are doomed.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
It will get tougher every year for high end smartphones now that cheaper sub 300 phones are getting so good that the difference is neglectable for most casual customers.
 

wachie

Member
How is Philip Elmer DeWitt sketchy? He did very good scorecards for analysts when he was at Fortune, which was strictly fact-based:
http://fortune.com/2014/10/21/apple...rter-the-amateurs-called-it-the-pros-blew-it/

You'll see there and in other scorecards at Fortune that KGI and Ming-Chi Kuo are not known for their earnings and sales estimates. Kuo is known more for his discussion of upcoming features.

The article is obviously quoting sarcastically when it is putting those quotes up next to a 56% incorrect prediction rate.
I'm skeptical because I dont know how he scores them and the rest of the "article" is behind a paywall. I dont know how other analysts score in his rating system either, next we find out Kuo is actually quite accurate when compared to the rest. Also note that Kuo actually goes into much, much more detail than some who just do a "yes" and "no" type things. So I dont actually find that % surprising, Kuo gives a lot so hence his susceptibility is more.

Between posting a news about Production cuts - Which actually makes sense for me, I dont see a point in buying a more expensiver 6s either when the 6 is still around and beeing the next person who proclaims peak iPhone is a lot.
Also, your source has already been proofed beeing far from spot-on.

And doesnt help that the usuall Apple is doomed!!!! News comes weekly since 2009.

Poor Apple is doomed just one Flagline iPhone after their recordselling iPhone 6 line. It must really suck to work in this company, either you break records every year with every iPhone or people claiming that you are doomed.
I feel the that the Apple is doomed posts are as silly as the ones thinking that Apple will keep this pace.
 

justjohn

Member
We all knew this was inevitable once Jobs left. Almost all of their money still comes from his products and they haven't come up with a single new successful product since he died. The watch was a massive flop.

I know they don't have to since his products are doing well but they have to convince people that they can at least move on from him.
 

BunnyBear

Member
when you're paying a premium and still getting 16gb base models with no expansion options what do you think is going to happen?

The iphone is mainly a North American product. When i travel i rarely see iphones anywhere else. In some areas they're pretty much just a status symbol.

They need to change up. It's getting ridiculous.

One of the worst posts I've ever seen.

They're still selling 200 million of the fucking things! But nobody is buying them?
 

ViciousDS

Banned
Sorry, love my one plus 2 way to much......not to mention it's half the price and a beast for what I played for. $400 phones ain't shit anymore and they are only going to get more competitive from even bigger companies such as moto, Samsung possibly joining the fight in the next few years.
 

spekkeh

Banned
My wife really wanted the new iphone. She wasn't interested in the highest premium, she liked the Apple ecosystem, and she doesn't particularly fancy big phones, so the iPhone SE sounded ideal.

Then she found out the price of the iPhone SE 64GB = Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

Yeah, Apple was always overpriced, but this just seemed taking the piss. Apple could only ride their hype for so long. Without actual innovation, they're in the same waters as the Asian phones, competing on price and specs, and they're losing heavily for a number of years now.

Still, this has been predicted before and turned out wrong an equal number of times, so the proof is in the pudding. But there does seem to be a bit more merit to it this time around, at least the rumors seem more persistent.
 
when you're paying a premium and still getting 16gb base models with no expansion options what do you think is going to happen?

The iphone is mainly a North American product. When i travel i rarely see iphones anywhere else. In some areas they're pretty much just a status symbol.

They need to change up. It's getting ridiculous.
This post is frankly terrible.
 

numble

Member
I'm skeptical because I dont know how he scores them and the rest of the "article" is behind a paywall. I dont know how other analysts score in his rating system either, next we find out Kuo is actually quite accurate when compared to the rest. Also note that Kuo actually goes into much, much more detail than some who just do a "yes" and "no" type things. So I dont actually find that % surprising, Kuo gives a lot so hence his susceptibility is more.

The Fortune posts are not behind a paywall. Feel free to read them if you want to question his analyst ranking system. The Fortune posts are strictly based on sales estimates, which is a easy measure as you can compare it to the actual numbers, and sales estimates (and not whether Apple will use a TouchID in its next iPad) is the subject of the thread.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
I think its mostly because Android manufacturers like Samsung has already fallen for the past few years. There's no more room for Android manufacturers to fall anymore as compared to the ios.
 

SwolBro

Banned
One of the worst posts I've ever seen.

They're still selling 200 million of the fucking things! But nobody is buying them?

This post is frankly terrible.

I know, people said i was ridiculous when telling them in 1998 that Apple was making a comeback.. It's ok not everyone has the vision.

This isn't an apple doom and gloom post, at least not completely. It's about how the company isn't innovating while still charging premiums in a market that has completely caught up to them. Yet, the responses are "woah you're ridiculous, they sold 200 million" annnd? ok?

Apple is too big to go away overnight like blackberry, that's why i don't like the comparisons to them. But the decline is happening.
 
I know, people said i was ridiculous when telling them in 1998 that Apple was making a comeback.. It's ok not everyone has the vision.

This isn't an apple doom and gloom post, at least not completely. It's about how the company isn't innovating while still charging premiums in a market that has completely caught up to them. Yet, the responses are "woah you're ridiculous, they sold 200 million" annnd? ok?

Apple is too big to go away overnight like blackberry, that's why i don't like the comparisons to them. But the decline is happening.
This is hilarious. Well done.
 
Everytime these analysts reports comes out, people get offended. Apple's not dying, it's not what's being predicted. They're not growing as much as in previous years, that's it.
 
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