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Apple's year of cheap battery upgrades resulted in 11 million repairs
In a recent all-hands meeting, Tim Cook reportedly revealed that Apple replaced 11 million iPhone batteries in 2018, up from its normal 1-2 million tally. The spike was a result of Apple's price cut to its battery replacement program as part of the fallout from its iPhone throttling debacle. And it seems that trend hit Apple where it hurts: iPhone sales.
Qualcomm wants China to ban the iPhone XS and XR
As part of an ongoing patent dispute, chipmaker Qualcomm is asking Chinese courts to ban sales of Apple's iPhone XS, XS Max and XR within the country, according to the Financial Times. The request comes just days after the company won an injunction temporarily preventing Apple from selling older models of iPhones in China.
iPhone 7 turns around slowing sales for Apple
iPhone sales were bound to start dropping sooner or later, but today's earnings news from Apple sees a turnaround: iPhone sales are back up after a year. In the first full quarter with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on the market, Apple sold 78.3 million smartphones. That's up about five percent from a year ago, when the company moved 74.8 million iPhones. Historically, a new iPhone model has guaranteed that sales would be up as well -- and even though the iPhone 7 is a rather iterative model, it was enough to do the trick.
Apple planned ahead for the inevitable hardware slump
It was inevitable but nonetheless concerning to investors: iPhone sales flattened out this quarter, part of an overall trend of weakness in the smartphone market, and Apple admitted that next quarter will see sales decline year over year for the first time. Yes, the company just reported record-breaking profit -- again -- but as the iPhone goes, so does Apple. As such, the company is forecasting its first revenue decline in years.
The iPhone helped Apple to another quarter of record-breaking sales
Apple just announced its Q4 2015 financial results, and as usual it's another big quarter for the iPhone. The company sold just over 48 million iPhones in Q4, up from 39.3 million one year ago. That's despite the fact that the new iPhone 6s was only on sale for about one week of the quarter. The company says it also had the biggest quarter of Mac sales ever, with 5.7 million units sold -- that's up from 5.5 million in the year-ago quarter.
Reports suggest 4th quarter iPhone sales very good
iPhone sales are almost always good, and when Apple reports 1st quarter sales on January 24th, all the signs point to some really excellent numbers. Earlier this week, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo reported 4.2 million iPhone sales, which doubled the company's 3rd quarter numbers. Some analysts estimate AT&T sold about 7 million iPhones, while estimates for Sprint are over 2 million phones. That's more than 13 million phones in the US alone, and of course the iPhone is selling in much of Europe and Asia. There are probably several factors contributing to robust sales. Extremely high customer satisfaction makes current owners evangelists for Apple products. The iPhone 4S with Siri created a lot of positive buzz, and there were very low prices on the older iPhone 3Gs. All these projections are higher than those of the previous quarter and the numbers from 2010. Of course they are only projections, and we'll know for sure when Apple lifts the curtain on the real numbers later this month. [via All Things Digital]
AT&T activates 1 million iPhone 4S handsets
Continuing in the vein of record iPhone launches stories, AT&T has announced it has activated more than 1 million iPhone 4S handsets as of Tuesday. They say that makes it the most successful launch in the company's history, which might explain why some customers experienced activation delays on day one. AT&T is so pleased with the result, it has put together a little video with AT&T staff and customers saying how much they love the iPhone on AT&T. If you're a user of the carrier, you may feel a pang of pride! Meanwhile, Sprint realized its best ever single-day sales on iPhone 4S launch day and Apple sold 4 million units within the 72 hours of availability. For a phone that's not the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S is causing quite a stir!
AT&T suspends online iPhone sales in New York City, reasons still unclear
Here's a Sunday night conundrum for you: it's no longer possible to purchase an iPhone from AT&T's online store if you live in New York City, and as of right now, the carrier isn't saying why. Making matters worse, some online customer service reps have apparently gone rogue in providing explanations to curious would-be customers and the occasional inquisitive blogger -- the Consumerist was told that NYC wasn't "ready for the iPhone," and a few others (including us) were fed a line about credit card fraud causing a ban on online sales. The fraud explanation would actually make sense, considering NYC-area Apple and AT&T stores all have the phone in stock and are happily selling them, but Ma Bell still hasn't put this story to bed with an official explanation -- all we've heard so far is the charmingly generic "We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels." Way to quell a fire with the gasoline of ambiguity, friends. Anyway, if you want an iPhone in New York City right this instant, you should start walking to the 24-hour Fifth Avenue Apple Store, taking the opportunity to assess your priorities and fundamental sense of purpose along the way. The rest of us will continue spending a reasonable percentage of our income on housing. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iPhone controls 46% of Japanese smartphone market
Impress Corporation of Japan is reporting that Apple now controls almost half the smartphone market in Japan with over 3 million iPhones sold to date. Keep in mind, it has taken the iPhone little more than a year to accomplish this. Impress reasons that the major shift towards the iPhone is because of its ease of use and the Japanese App Store. About 77 percent of iPhone 3GS owners use a half-hour's worth of data per day while Android and iPhone 3G users are neck and neck at 66 percent using data for half an hour a day. Apple is having incredible success in other Asian markets as well. While the iPhone took a lot of slack from the press during its initial Chinese launch, it is picking up steam there, with China Unicom now saying the iPhone "Will become China's best-selling smart phone." In South Korea, where 90,000 iPhones have already been sold in less than three weeks, 700,000 are expected to be sold in 2010. With all this success, no wonder Apple is expected to sell 10 million iPhones this quarter. The question is, where will the iPhone dominate next? And at whose expense?
China Unicom's dismal iPhone sales
Two weeks into official iPhone sales, China Unicom has sold only 5 units* through the online retailer Taobao.com according to PCWorld. China Unicom sells iPhones through its own site, but doesn't share sales figures. Still, PCWorld reports, Taobao.com is the country's largest e-commerce site, and has a large iPhone section. What could account for the poor performance? The Golden Shield Project for one, which (among other things) prevents the sale of iPhones with Wi-Fi enabled. iPhones purchased outside of China do have Wi-Fi, of course. Another factor could be China's bustling black market. Despite the recent official release, the iPhone has been available in China for quite some time now. AppleInsider estimates that nearly 2 million iPhones are already circulating China, most of them jailbroken. Cost is another factor. For example, a contract-free 32GB iPhone 3GS costs 6,999 yuan (approximately US$1,024 as of this writing) in China, compared to about US$800 in Hong Kong. The news isn't all gloom-and-doom, however. AppleInsider reports that those who do purchase iPhones legitimately are flocking to the App Store. Still, the problem of getting more official iPhones into the hands of Chinese customers remains. *As of Dec. 3rd, 2009.
App Store performing well in China despite hindrances
Last August, China Unicom Ltd (CHU) announced a 3-year partnership to officially bring the iPhone to China. As predicted in July, the CHU's iPhone is sold with Wi-Fi disabled, in accordance with the Golden Shield Project. Additionally, 3GS hardware is still unavailable in China. Despite these hindrances, handset and App Store sales have been doing well, AppleInsider reports. It's estimated that $1 million in legitimate app sales have been made this year, with a little over a month-and-a-half left in the quarter. Black market phones are a huge problem in China, and it's been estimated nearly 2 million are in circulation, most of them jailbroken and running pirated apps. Apple hopes to sell 500,000 iPhones in China by the year's end. Next year looks brighter: Wi-Fi regulations were relaxed back in May, and CHU hopes to have a Wi-Fi enabled model available soon. [Via AppleInsider]
iPhone 3GS ranked #1 in cellphone sales in Japan... for now.
TG Daily (via Fortune) is reporting that Japanese market research company BCN's latest rankings of cellphone sales in Japan are showing that Apple's smartphone is the the current market leader in that country.I did a quick check at BCN this afternoon while writing this post, and the iPhone 3GS 32GB is listed in first place in sales (see screenshot at right), with the iPhone 3GS 16GB in second place. The 3GS was just introduced in Japan on June 26th, and the sales figures are from the week of June 22 - 28. BCN's source of data includes point-of-sale information from many of Japan's largest electronics retailers, including Amazon Japan, Eiden, Bic Camera, K's Denki, and Best Denki. Akky Akimoto at Asiajin is providing some perspective on the numbers. It's not unusual for a new phone to jump to the top of the list as it is released. As he notes, the Sony Network Walkman was #1 in the BCN ranking of music players at one time in 2005, but for the complete year, Apple iPod had a 60% share of the Japanese market.Still, this is good news for Apple, and as Mr. Akimoto says, "Becoming No. 1 even for a week is better than never being No. 1..."
iPhones still selling like hotcakes?
Despite the notable backlash at some of Apple's questionably-nefarious corporate agendas recently, Blackfriars' Marketing blog notes that iPhones are still selling rather well - and that stock is low in a dozen or so stores. GigaOM is also reporting people are causing noticeable queues at silly hours of the day at the twenty-four hour Fifth Avenue store, just to buy handsets.Of course, the mass-buying could be purely down to people buying plenty of handsets to hack, brick, and re-lock to try and score a feature on Joy of Tech, but the reasons from Blackfriars seem to be slightly more business-orientated. Demand for the iPhone elsewhere in the world - particularly Europe, despite the fact there's now a launch date and pricing for at least some European territories - is clearly a tempting proposition for people looking to make a tidy profit from sending iPhones abroad, and plenty seem to be doing so.Thanks, Mike.
iPhone was the best selling smartphone in July
Numbers released by iSuppli show that the iPhone outsold all smartphones in the month of July. Further, it outsold all "feature phones" with the exception of the LG Chocolate (which it tied). All told the iPhone represented 1.8% of handsets sold in the US in July. The numbers breakdown also show that 25% of iPhone buyers switched to AT&T. Based on these numbers iSuppli estimated that Apple will move 4.5m this year and (somehow) estimates worldwide shipments of 30m by 2011. In any case, it's abundantly clear that the iPhone is well on it's way to being a major success in the most profitable part of the market. Of course, it's hard to know how well the sales numbers will hold up once the initial rush has passed, but if Apple continues its iPod trend of improving features and lowering prices I suspect we'll be talking about amazing iPhone numbers for quite some time to come.[via electronista]
