Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

Let’s look at the numbers and compare it to the HN narratives.

https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/01/apples-dramatic-q1-2019-r...

1. People are abandoning Macs: Revenue for the Mac is tied for its highest quarter ever.

2. The Apple Watch is a failure/AirPods and abandoning the headphone jack is hurting Apple: Wearable and home accessories are higher than ever.

3. Apple made a mistake by raising iPhone prices: Despite Apple’s missing its revenue predictions. This is still it’s 2nd most profitable quarter ever. It’s only under its most profitable quarter by around $100 Million.

View on HN

> compare it to the HN narratives

Seems like you constructed a strawman to knock down. This site contains diverse opinions that you'd find in any community of large enough size.

PS - The graphs are very attractive, but it is unclear if they're inflation adjusted. $6.9B in Q1 2015 Mac Revenue dollars is worth $7.42B in 2019 dollars.

No one does inflation adjusted year over year comparisons.

They do if they want accurate comparison of growth. Otherwise you're just measuring inflation by proxy.

A lot of companies are actually flat when you adjust for inflation.

I’m not arguing that you are not technically correct.

I am saying that when analysts and companies compare year over year growth, they generally don’t express it in inflation adjusted terms. If that were the case, Microsoft reached an inflation adjusted market cap of $1 trillion right before 2000 I believe.

Yes, he made a mistake, it's not HackerNews fault, it's every single mainstream media outlet out there.

You'll see things like "flagging iPhone sales", "failing iPhone sales", "post-iPhone era", "iPhone sales slump", etc. etc. etc.

You'll start to believe that.

You better believe that iPhone sales have fallen pretty dramatically, because that is exactly what Apple has just reported.

However, what I would like to know is whether Apple has lost market share outside of China. I would also like to know whether Apple's share of mobile usage has declined.

I think these questions are a lot more important to developers than quarterly financials.

Developers don’t care about market share. If they did, they would have been prioritizing Android years ago. Developers care about reaching people who are willing and able to spend money. Statistically, that is still iOS users.

I agree that the share of spending on each platform is the most important factor for developers. But if market share declines were beginning to affect Apple's share of mobile usage, then that would be a worrying trend for iOS developers.

Apple does have far wealthier customers than Android, but compensating for market share losses by moving ever further up-market would be a dangerous strategy in my view.

If middle class kids are priced out of iOS, they're unlikely to come back later when they make their own money. Same for people from less wealthy countries. I do not believe that this idea of being the "aspirational product" applies to computing platforms in the same way it may apply to expensive cars.

But I was just asking questions. I'm not making a claim that any of this is actually happening right now.

I wouldn’t think that most middle class kids are buying their own phones. Either their parents are buying them or they are getting hand me downs.

My son had a 2018 Moto G, he was more than happy to “upgrade” to a 2015 iPhone 6s. Mid range Android phones are nowhere near as performant as iPhones that are 3 years older. Refurbished, used iPhones are cheap.

Besides, it seems to be a habit when people talk about iPhones they act as if the only iPhones that Apple sells is the maxed out $1500 iPhone XS Max. Completely ignoring the $475 iPhone 7s that will still give you better performance than most Android phones and get years of updates.

Obviously kids are not buying their own phones, but someone is paying for them in some shape or form (hand-me-down phones are not free either).

The average selling price of iPhones has gone up pretty sharply. We don't know yet if that is what's behind the drop in sales because China is such an idiosyncratic market, but I think the answer matters.

And mobile carriers like T-mobile are increasing the length of their payment plans from two to three years. Apple is also starting to push their payment plan/trade in program harder.

They are all trying to do phone-as-a-Service with continuing subscription payments where you never pay off the phone. Psychologically most people only care about the monthly cost. I’m not saying that is wise.

Unless my son breaks his iPhone 6s that I bought for myself in 2015 for $750, I don’t see any reason it won’t be a good phone for another two years and the rate things are going, it might still be faster than your average mid range Android phone in 2020.

Apples moves don't matter.

iPhones last longer and going rates for second hand ones speak volumes for themselves.

Also, Apple sells more products than the top of the line XS Max, they have plenty of middle of the road models like the iPhone 7, which is still faster than any Android phone ever made.

If you really care about it, why don't you talk about the regaining iPad? Are you selling Apps for themselves? iPad is the prime platform and with Photoshop coming, it will only do good.

Apple says they have now 1.4 billion active devices.

>Apples moves don't matter

I think this claim is not on very firm footing until we learn a bit more about how Apple's higher average selling price is affecting markets outside of China.

Then just look at Android... the stumble is global and bigger than Apple.

Go develop for Android, they are needing it.

Why would I go develop for Android because they are needing it? Android is not a charity. I don't care what they need.

All I want to do is find out what the underlying trends really are. You're trying to create some sort of controversy that I don't really understand.

> However, what I would like to know is whether Apple has lost market share outside of China.

Apple has been losing market share for some time, it was relatively flat on units sold while the market was increasing. See e.g. this from a year ago: https://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2018/02/apple-...

> at one point Apple did 20% of all smartphones sold. The last three years? 16%, 15% and now 14%.

Yes, but the question is whether that translates into lower usage share or if it's just a reflection of the fact that the useful life of iPhones is longer than that of Android phones.

Also, I am more interested in what's going on outside of China, because China is not representative of anything else for various reasons.

Looks like a significant drop in iPhone YoY revenue.

That’s true. But if they made up for it by focusing on services, isn’t that the sign of a well run company?

No one derided them when iPod sales declined and the iPhone was growing. That would also be like critizing Netflix’s cratering DVD business while ignoring their streaming service.

What a confusing post.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com