Apple iPhone sales fall in nearly all countries | Hacker News Reader

Apple iPhone sales fall in nearly all countries

bbc.com

22 pointstestrun49 comments

At some point isn't it natural for people to just hold on to the phones they already have ?

I probably average a new phone ever 18 months or so, but I'm a tech enthusiast. No normal person needs a new phone that often. At a point you saturate your market.

I’m also a tech enthusiast but I change my iPhone every 4 or 5 years. And it may be the issue here, there’s not that much incentive to switch from an iPhone to the next one except if you are an Apple fan boy, thanks to the awesome upgrades support. Hope they won’t “fix” it.

If Apple didnt artifically „break” phones with software downgrades - that phone with replaced battery could work perfectly fine for 10+ years.

To tackle climate issues we have to enforce an improvement to quality of produced goods.

Remember those old German cars that were easy to maintain and could do 1 000 000 miles without major maintenances?

Capitalism and consumption enforced on ppl (greed) destroys this world.

> perfectly fine for 10+ years

Carriers will want you on the new wireless standard before then.

Wait what?

Cars reliability has greatly improved over the years, the tolerances got smaller as the manufacturing process got better.

Literally any car today can make it over 100k miles.

As a nerd I prefer to work on cars today, you plugin a scanner, run diagnostics and it literally tells you what is wrong with the car.

The 1 million miles cars were not trouble free, they were kept running by people committed to replacing everything but the body of the car.

Not true. Almost every produced Volvo 900 did get to 200k or so without much maintenance - only oil and breaks/lightbulbs.

It was not uncommon for them to do 500k miles without major maintenance.

Now do that with any direct gasoline injection cars enforced by stupid emission laws.

Those car engines are designed to do max 150k and die and you can do nothing about it, no way to fix it.

And talk to any cars enthusiast about wiring issues, one wire broken in the car computer ? Well you better buy a new car coz noone will ever ever find it :)

Ive been fixing cars as a hobby for 20 years, the quality of cars went downhill super hard and new laws only make it worse by increasing pollution not decreasing it.

There is also a diminished value of mobile phones today vs yesteryear.

* Twitter is dead for all intents and purposes * Lots of mobile apps are dead/dying and people aren't using them in the same way they used to out of privacy or concerns - such as checking in where you eat or tracking your exercise/fitness. (Nike really screwed the pooch here) and see twitter dead * New phones just push performance which isn't really needed when people merely surf the web or click a few apps while they take a crap

I'd say a lot of the mobile apps are dead/dying because they gave up on the app store paradigm and went subscription. Take myfitnesspal for example - where its 80 bucks a year to subscribe to use USER GENERATED CONTENT and it isn't shareable because its not an app purchase, but rather a sub. So many apps did this now that the family share is useless..

and lets not forget phones are getting expensive in plans rather than more affordable.. remember the days of cable? that's what carriers like verizon are doing where its hard to avoid disney, hulu or game subs or other crap when you just want a cell phone plan

Telegram is growing though.

None of this is really true globally where the main sales falls are indicated. Particularly in Asia there is a huge growth in apps still from ride hailing to social media (TikTok is still allowed there, btw), and data plans are cheap and ubiqutous. Unlimited data can be had for just $30 a month in many countries. Even $10 in some.

What is true-- outside of the US -- is an extraordinary galaxy of Android phones available for every price point from cheap $80 (and quite capable RedMis) to $2000 Samsungs. All with dual SIMs and 1 TB capable SD Card slots.

Maybe people just don't want to pay for expensive and limited hardware (expansion wise), especially where their monthly salary maybe just $500 USD.

Longer device payment agreements combined with promotional credits designed to trap customers into a single phone also don’t help when yearly releases come out.

Many people leaped up to the iPhone 14 and are now about 12-14 months in on a 36 month installment plan. Combined with the deep promotional credits offered that made the phones “nearly free” or “free” for many, we’re now stuck in a rock and a hard place.

I plan on buying out my phone after a few more billing cycles since Verizon is crediting close to $22/mo of the phone and I’m only in it for $5.

I haven't financed a phone for years.

I buy my phones cash and pay about 30$ for unlimited data on Mint.

I finance pretty much everything because it's easy to make 5%+ on cash and fixed payments gradually "decrease" with high inflation.

Verizon is like 100$ a month.

After year 1, your doing better buying the phone out of pocket.

1200 a year for Verizon vs 360$ for Mint.

1k for an iPhone, assume the phone is included with the plan. 2400$ for two years on Verizon vs 1k + 720 for two years of Mint.

We had Google fi for $25/line for 6 lines.

But VZW works out to $31/line for 6 lines; and we got 6 “free” iPhone 14.

So it definitely seems like the better deal over the 3 year contract period — $1300 extra for 6 new phones.

But I air quote becaus there were some extra activation fees, we pay monthly for the phones but then get a credit to zero it out which I worry is tricking me somehow, and I’m pretty sure our monthly service with VZW is NOT fixed under contract, so maybe they can jack up my monthly bill over the 3 years I’m paying off the phones?? I don’t know.

So far, 6 months in, it’s been a good deal but I much prefer buying phone outright and opting for cheapest service — but I THINK this promotion will get me out ahead, as long as I switch back to a cheaper provider at the end and don’t get an escalating service fee before phones paid off.

That's a good point, I generally only run one or two lines for myself.

I'm happy that you got a good deal, but I found phone salesman to be super sketchy when I was younger. I recall trying to buy a phone, and they didn't have it in stock. The clerk was like, it doesn't matter you should get the more expensive one because both are zero down.

I just finance directly with Apple. They offer the iPhone 15 Pro for $1000 or 24 monthly payments of $42. With 7% inflation you'd actually save ~$150 doing the monthly payments.

I'm also enthusiastic about technology. That's one of the main reasons I've been running the same phone for 6 years, and ideally it is my last smartphone.

I wouldn't expect upgrade cycles to be synchronized in nearly all countries.

This should be expected in times of increased inflation: prices for goods are increasing faster than wages, so most people have less disposable income.

They'll respond by cutting back on or deferring unnecessary expenses (like upgrading an existing working phone), or choosing cheaper goods (like replacing a broken phone with a cheaper one), especially if as the article says there's not much in the way of compelling new features to drive an upgrade cycle.

It isn't just that. The average person these days cannot distinguish a quality difference between the iPhone 13 and 15. The iPhone camera has been the jewel in Apple's crown but it's reached a stage of "more than good enough" some time ago, so what real reason is there to upgrade?

As I said:

> especially if as the article says there's not much in the way of compelling new features to drive an upgrade cycle

> prices for goods are increasing faster than wages, so most people have less disposable income

Real wages are flat with Q4 2019, but higher than almost any other time in the iPhone’s existence [1]. Disposable income is also near all-time highs [2].

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPI

You know what else is at all time highs? Homelessness and household debt

Household debt is down over the 2008 high [0]

Even in real terms homelessness is flat. As a percentage it’s down. [1]

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-...

Although homelessness has been rising since 2017 the cut off date there is not giving you a very accurate picture. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-...

Also in 2018 household debt wasn't at $17 trillion https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-household-debt-just-surged...

> in 2018 household debt wasn't at $17 trillion

Inflation means you're always going to have record statistics of everything in everything but a plummeting (think: Ukraine) economy. Stock market. Household wealth. Household debt.

The best part of getting a new phone is the new battery.

Every year I miss the iPhone 4 more and more.

That phone was so easily fixed and well designed to replace parts.

I think I’d cry a little inside if Apple made a modern iPhone 4 again

After buying a Framework laptop and realizing it even comes with the only tool you'd ever need to upgrade or repair it, I would absolutely buy a Framework phone without question.

Just give me stock Android and midrange performance. If I can easily replace the screen and battery and upgrade the mainboard in a few years, I'll be totally happy.

Have you considered the Fairphone? https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5 might be exactly that

The iPhone 14 (and I assume 15) does have lower repair pricing and a more repair friendly design than its predecessor.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ifixit-apples-iphone-14-is-its-mo...

That is terrible because a new battery could be installed on an existing phone but Apple and others make it so hard and costly that many just get a new phone.

I miss the old days were I could just buy a battery and dump it in my phone. Those devices were not water tight but neither is my current smart phone.

A laptop has zero excuse for not having a removable battery.

My wife still uses an iPhone 11 the upgrade cycle has really spread out to longer intervals. Also also the median American is simply poorer

I bought an iPhone 11 on Swappa last year to replace my 8 with a wonky camera. A lot of this is just maturation of the market. The growth in recent years came from the general population who just wanted functionality, and that itch is scratched while the other things in life take up more of our budgets lately.

I'm on 12, I will only upgrade when the phone fails, or Tmobile has a trade-in deal. I see no reason to get an new iPhone, more money in my investment accounts.

I still use an XS (from 2018) and it has no issues running everything.

They can pry my iPhone Mini from my cold, dead hands.

I mean, what reason do I have to upgrade, even if I wanted a phone the size of a skateboard? Better camera? Eh...I'm trying really hard make that a reason to layout $800, but I'm failing. Faster chip? My phone isn't slow the way it is now. I don't do iOS work anymore, so there goes that excuse for an upgrade. And let's face it: the novelty of smartphones has worn off. The iPhone was released seventeen years ago. It's not awesome new tech, it's the appliance that I carry around so that $PEOPLE_IMPORTANT_TO_ME can get hold of me, and I can check the weather. I'm otherwise about as excited about a new one as I am about a new washer. (Well, probably less excited, because our new washer/dryer all-in-one is awesome.)

A top-level comment says battery. When Apple will no longer plop a new battery in my Mini for $80, I guess that's when I'll upgrade. Or Apple could, you know, make another Mini.

Just buy batteries from ifixit. Replace iPhone battery yourself isn’t hard.

I've been looking for android phones to replace my 12 mini.

I'm not interested in carrying around a huge phone, even if it means a few weeks of getting used to android again.

I was secretly hoping they might announce minis on every alternate model, or release an SE that was smaller but it doesn't seem so.

Helps explain why Apple has focused so much energy on fighting the DMA in Europe. Fewer iPhones sold means less H/W + App Store revenue. Alternative app stores on top of that could mean very bad news for advertising revenue on the main app store.

Maybe this will force Apple to be innovative. Or maybe they'll just increase service pricing and gradually cut features and material costs in an attempt to keep both margins and revenue high. My bet with Tim Cook is unfortunately the latter.

I wonder if the push for “Hardware-as-a-Service” (monthly financing) has any effect on declining new phone sales.

I’ve noticed that the major carriers do three year loan terms instead of two almost universally in the US.

Depending on cause, this could be a good thing. If it’s simply because phones last longer that great.

They could always last a bit longer, that is not why

The new iPhone will have a chatGPT-style native app

Let the be Android and custom roms

Growth at this scale is irrational expectation. They already have taken over almost 80~90% of the high margin smartphone market which is already saturated a few years ago. This is why Apple is taking so passive-aggressive stance on antitrust regulations as well as expanding into the ads business; there's simply not enough room for growth in the hardware segment while many investors are still expecting 5~10% perpetual annual growth.

I am holding out for another mini

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