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Comment by JimDabell | Hacker News Reader

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JimDabell

> Apple is basically a smartphone company at this point, and smartphone sales are plummeting.

iPhone sales aren’t plummeting at all:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-ipho...

https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/

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A graph whose data ends in 2018 isn't strong evidence for "they aren't plummeting."

That said, doing some searches for newer information (e.g., https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/) suggests that iPhone sales aren't plummeting but are instead rather stable. (Although I wonder how much of that is services attributed to iPhone as opposed to solely the sales revenue from iPhone, the source doesn't make that clear).

Well, since you can actually look at Apple’s quarterly report where they break down revenue from iPhones and services separately…

No services are attributed to iPhone. It’s a different category, reported separately. No conspiratorial thinking on easily-checked assertions please.

How does the source not make it clear? The first two bullets from your source.

“Apple generated $390.8 billion revenue in 2024, 51% came from iPhone sales

Apple Services is the second largest division, responsible for 24% of revenue in 2024”

Do either of those facts point to increases in iPhone sales?

The second source’s first paragraph says “with total sales expected to surpass previous records” for 2023, at least.

Sales are accounted for in $ terms, not units sold. It's the same thing with Hollywood. You might think movies are more popular than ever thanks to record breaking sales (pre-COVID at least). In reality, we reached peak movie, in terms of tickets sold, in 2002! [1]

Back to iPhones, this [2] page shows their stats by units sold (about half way down). iPhone is essentially treading water if those data are correct (with a peak in 2015 overcome twice since, but by ~1% each time), but I strongly suspect that that's showing units shipped and not units sold, as iPhone sales declining has been universally reported.

[1] - https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

[2] - https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/

Ask yourself the question of what it means when a company makes more dollars from a product while not increasing the number of units sold. It's completely obvious if you think about it for a moment.

While sales may not be plummeting. Hype around the market sure has. Nobody is really that excited about the next iPhone anymore.

The last time I bought the newest iPhone was iPhone 5. In the past, I’ve been getting hand me downs since most people change their phone between 12-18 months. I’m still using an iPhone X. I can’t upgrade the iOS at the moment so looking forward to getting an iPhone 13 in the next year or so.

I agree with you. Hand me downs aren’t coming as fast as they used to.

This is the first time in a long time I’m not interested in replacing my phone after a year.

That's probably pretty healthy -- phones these days should comfortably last you several years. I consider folks who buy a new phone every year these days to be engaging in pretty conspicuous consumption.

which when you look at your device, it's cost and what you use it for, should not be all that remarkable of a statement. I mean, what if you replaced "phone" with car, house or partner?

I bet id buy a new car more frequently if cars were first invented!

As it is, I bought my car new and is 20 years old in great condition. Partner … I mean, who wouldn’t want to trade in for a new model if it weren’t for the social concerns? (I kiiiid I kiiid)

If you could get the same partner with more capabilities and less wear and tear with all important information transferred into the new one every year it sounds pretty appealing.

I have bought two phones since 2010

The graph I see on that link goes only to 2018 and seems to show slight decline. What is the takeaway meant here?

Sorry, added a second source with more up to date data.

the second source shows sales have been increasing.

This threads confusing so I'll jump in!

Well, no, it shows:

2021 < 2023

2022 < 2021

2023 > 2021

2024 ??

2023 > all previous years

That's not true, though!

We can see the bar for 2021 is longer than 2023!

We can see the table value for 2021 is > 2023!

Screenshots, for sales, from 2nd link, i.e. what we are told to look to see 2021 < 2023: https://imgur.com/a/CpGWbWM

(although, my comment makes a hash of the whole thing and says 2021 is both < and > than 2023. Sigh.)

(n.b. not trying to be aggressive, or disagree, or make a statement about the overall premise that sales are declining. Just mildly amused by the confusion in the thread)

(my $0.02 would be that we're seeing the same general stasis that was presumed after the iPhone 6 release, but really, we just need more data (2021 was COVID stimmy high))

(but my $0.02 should be that "yeah stuff plateaued, or at least no more hypergrowth, post-2018" because this is what we were shown on the Pixel team at Google, and a little birdy told me that's how Apple thinks about it)

> but my $0.02 should be that "yeah stuff plateaued, or at least no more hypergrowth, post-2018"

Note that what was being claimed was that “Apple is basically a smartphone company at this point, and smartphone sales are plummeting”. Whether iPhone sales are growing, bounced around a bit, or have plateaued is irrelevant. It’s pretty clear they are not plummeting.

Right!

Note that I'm not saying that's true! I didn't say anything about any of that! :)

This is missing the last 7 years of data…

There seems to have been a downward trend for smartphones since 2017.

Growth is either from an expanding market or an expanding market share, since it’s not an expanding market that leaves the market share.

I would image there is some substitution, with iPhones lasting longer on average it becomes more cost effective to switch to iPhones so they capture more market share. But if the general market doesn’t expand then it’s a fairly safe assumption that the new converts are going to wait before upgrading meaning that a decrease in sales is already partially baked in.

My anecdotal datapoint is 4 iPhones in 16 years which makes them rather cheap on an annual basis.

Edit: I had assumed that parent was correct, but as the peer pointed out iPhone sales have declined

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