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Comment by gehsty | Hacker News Reader

Stagnant is not a fair way to describe selling 46.8 million iPhones.

Stagnant implies it's not growing, not that it's not selling.

steady, level, imply the same thing but as a positive. I think it's just a matter of perspective whether Apple needs to grow its iPhone sales.

That said they must surely decline, the number of people who are going to continue to drop 1k+ on the new iPhone every few years is going to be limited by the resale value of last years phone, a market which (anecodtally) appears is droping precipitously.

Stagnant carries a connotation of some dark, oxygen-deprived mire that suffocates fish and smells horrible. It invokes images of death and decay. Not exactly the idea I had in mind when I hear of the sales numbers.

Not exactly the idea I had in mind when I hear of the sales numbers.

The global market size for mobile phones is still growing. If Apple's sales aren't growing at least in line with the size of the market then their market share is shrinking. Selling a lot in a stable market is great. Selling a lot in a growing market is ... less great.

What market are you talking about? Apple is only in the premium phone market.

Apple is only in the premium phone market.

I must have been talking about the premium phone market then, obviously.

Which premium mobiles are getting growing volume right now then?

Is Apple even looking to ship huge volumes of new units to emerging markets? An alternative strategy would be to preserve their cachet in order to preserve their cachet and remain an aspirational product.

Once your brand starts taking on the characteristics of a Veblen good, the rules start to work a bit differently. It hasn't, thus far, been a losing strategy for Mercedes Benz to not have a direct competitor to the Honda Civic.

Negative connotation, try telling your partner their attractiveness has stagnated if it has stayed the same.

A fairer way would be to state the iPhone sales have simply not grown.

Do you think Apple should be concerned about the lack of growth?

Stagnant does not mean anything in absolute, it describes a relative trend.

I'm amazed at how many people in this comment section have taken issue with such an innocuous word.

It's not really innocuous, it is fairly typical for a headline though. It's designed to draw you in. No doubt the use of stable instead of stagnant would produce less clicks.

If previous sales were about the same numbers, it's a perfectly fair way.

Impressive, amazing numbers maybe, but still stagnant, if they didn't improve over the last ones.

Stagnant has a very negative meaning attached to it. The author could have used words like "constant" (neural) or "steady" (positive). He chose to use "stagnant" and deserves to be called for it.

The use of stagnant is correct, as for negative the share price affect is immediate as it includes an expected growth.

Apple’s P/E of 20.13 does not suggest people expect significant growth. Inflation + 5% returns is a reasonable investment even without increased unit sales.

Why?

Stock price plummeted after the results, and I doubt market analysts were influenced by that specific article.

The market clearly agrees on the assessment that the sales are "stagnant", negative connotation included. Which is not surpising since the stocks are priced taking into account potential growth, rather than present results.

"Constant" or "steady" I would expect from Apple PR wording...

(And I have no beef with Apple, my brother works there and I'm a satisfied customer, for all that matters).

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