Hacker News Reader

"top selling iPhone" is a relative statement, the whole pie can be shrinking and Apple could've hoped for more sales, but compared to other (8 and older) iPhones it is still doing good.

The forecasts in the media were about the absolute levels not relative.

View on HN

Well, they sold 77.3m this quarter compared to 78.3m last quarter. The whole pie is shrinking, but by a tiny amount. But they made $7b more revenue from that. So it worked out well for them.

Last quarter was 14 weeks vs the normal 13 so it's more like it's flat or a tiny bit up than shrinking.

And the smartphone market as a whole is shrinking too, and more than 1%. Context, in this cases, matters a lot. Id say sales of iPhone this Q have been really good, considering X was a very risky proposition (high price, casts shadows over 8)

The absolute levels are their best quarter ever. Can’t possibly be that bad, can it?

Their best quarters were supply-constrained.

If there are d units demanded and p units produced, and d >> p, then unit sales = p. Next year, if there are d' units demanded and p' units produced, and d' >= p' while p' > p, then unit sales are going to go up. This tells you a little bit about d', but not everything.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com