Apple CEO Tim Cook: iPhone X Has Been the Top Selling iPhone Every Week Since it Shipped

[johngordon]

Who cares when the software running on it is crap. Yes the gestures are slick, Face ID is ok although still not there, OLED screen is great, but the notch cuts into full screen content no matter how many ways you slice it, iOS 11 is a fail with lags and bugs and doesn't take advantage of the X at all. At this point I couldn't care less about the hardware, I'm much more interested in iOS 12 and if Apple really will address all the bugs and its poor performance by today's standards. Only then will I consider buying. I'm just not going to give them 1k of my money when their software is so poor lately. I returned mine solely because of it and won't be buying from them again unless they redeem it.

If the iPhone was only a thing that ever used that space the notch would be a much bigger issue. But the fact is that the majority of apps don't have content in that space which is getting eaten into. Its only photos and video and games. Even if its not ideal, you're not going to miss anything that central in any of those. And if you prefer you have the option of cropping slightly. So the people it bothers are people who are apparently take movie watching seriously enough to be precious about cropping a ratio, but not so precious that they are happy to watch stuff on a tine smartphone screen.

What even are all these bugs anyway? You make it sound like things are crashing left right and centre, making the thing a real pain to use. Maybe I've been lucky, but that has not been my experience at all.

 

[where is it]

It was always a clever way for Apple to combat declining iPhone sales. Just increase the price year on year.

Eventually your'll end up with a trillion dollar iPhone sold to one person to keep the trillion dollar company going.

 

[Abazigal]

There is just one more piece of information we need to make this all complete.

Apple’s percentage share of profits in the mobile market for the quarter.

Granted, it’s never going to be anywhere near the record 103.6% in 2016. Man, what an epic quarter that was.

 

[Reason077]

I'm not in love with my iPhone X. It's the first iPhone I've ever bought where I have a moderate amount of "buyers remorse".

I *do* absolutely love Face ID: huge improvement on Touch ID. The notch doesn't bother me much. The performance and battery life are also great as one would expect.

My main issues with the X relate to ergonomics:

- It is really rather big and heavy compared to the 6/7/8 series. I expected it to be closer to the 6/7/8 in size and weight, but it's really almost a "plus" size device. I would prefer something a little smaller and lighter.

- The gesture-based interface can be annoying to use at times, and in some cases it takes longer to get many simple things done than with the old interface. Most of it isn't *that* bad, but bringing up the settings panel is particularly difficult and annoying.

- The camera is huge and sticks out so far from the body of the device that it can't sit flat on a surface at all. Makes the phone really annoying to use when seated at a desk/table as it rattles and slides on the surface whenever you touch it.

 

[Superhappytree]

If the iPhone was only a thing that ever used that space the notch would be a much bigger issue. But the fact is that the majority of apps don't have content in that space which is getting eaten into. Its only photos and video and games. Even if its not ideal, you're not going to miss anything that central in any of those. And if you prefer you have the option of cropping slightly. So the people it bothers are people who are apparently take movie watching seriously enough to be precious about cropping a ratio, but not so precious that they are happy to watch stuff on a tine smartphone screen.

What even are all these bugs anyway? You make it sound like things are crashing left right and centre, making the thing a real pain to use. Maybe I've been lucky, but that has not been my experience at all.

I didn't mind the notch at all on the home screen and in some apps I used, I soon got 'used to it'. I still think it's a design failure when the rest of the experience which requires full screen content is compromised due to the notch cutting into said content. It cuts into it when playing games (especially worse in landscape games like racing), it's terribly obstructive when you actually want to take full advantage of the screen and view your pictures in full like Snapchat pics for example, and although not many people use this (that's not the point, it's just the fact that it's still there), if you open GarageBand and go into keyboard it cuts into the damn keys at the edge of the keyboard.

I don't get this over defense of the notch at all and dislike Apple apologists who just gloss over it and basically 'accept' it.

Let me ask you this; would you seriously buy a TV with a notch at the top of it? Would you be perfectly comfortable with it cutting into your movies or whatever you watch? I highly doubt it. No screen in the history of screens has done it and there's a reason for that and that reason is because it is absolutely obstructive, uniform, doesn't make any logical sense and is awful design. The UI and software now has to be written entirely around it on the X like with control centre which used to be easy to access but is now in a worse and harder to get to position and requires two hands.

It's ok though we'll just force ourselves to get used to it because Apple.

 

[recoil80]

When your line-up consists of offering 8 different devices, it’s not hard for your most recent device to be the top selling one. Tim said it himself, the truth is in the long game, not a single 90 day period... let’s wait until we’re 365 days in and see where iPhone sales are then before declaring it a success or failure.

Well I guess iPhone X sold very well on its first quarter since people who care about having the latest and greatest tend to buy it as soon as it is available.
Maybe next quarter they'll sell more SE and 7 and the rumours about cutting production will prove to be reliable.
But even in that scenario, I wouldn't call X a failure. If it sold well during the first quarter it means millions of customers are willing to pay an higher price for the phone, and that allows Apple to sell similar phones in the future. Maybe they'll produce less of them if demand is weak during 2018, but as long as they can sell a lot of them during the holidays they're fine.

 

[Rogifan]

Yeah, how do those reported cutbacks tie in with today's rosy earnings call? We'll have to wait till May's Q2 earnings call to see if the 'X honeymoon' is over, with the early adopters all having received their units by now.

Also Apple does not break down individual iPhone sales figures, so we basically have to take Tim's word that the X has been their top seller. It is a beautiful and very advanced phone to be sure, but the price is holding many back.

I’m going to trust that Tim Cook on an earnings call isn’t going to lie. And ASP being higher than ever pretty much proves out what he said. On the other hand your comment that the price is holding many back is based on what exactly? A feeling? Anecdotal evidence? Certainly not anything Cook said on the earnings call. I get that for whatever reason some people don’t want the X to be successful but it is so they need to stop pretending it isn’t.

 

[Matz]

Last weekend I switched carriers and used the excuse to buy a new phone. My 6 needed a new battery, which I obtained at Office Depot for less than Apple’s price; gave the 6 to my non-tech SO, who’s pleased at the upgrade from her 5c. Fingerprint recognition!

Anyway, I’d pretty much decided on an 8, because of price. Then found out that the X cost only about $12 a month more, so said what the hell and bought it. With a 14 day return window, it wasn’t much of a risk. Glad I did, as I like it very, very much.
I also have a company-issued 7, which is a fine phone. But I now prefer the X.
Face ID works well; most of the time I don’t even notice it. It failed once when I was wearing a hard hat and wraparound sunglasses, but then apparently figured out it was me and subsequently worked.
The phone’s a bit larger than the 6 and 7, and so doesn’t fit my shirt pocket quite as well. But well enough.
It’s heavier, by which I mean more substantial. And it fits my hand pretty well.
The interface changes were easier to adapt to than I expected; and now I find myself occasionally swiping up on my 7 and of course arriving at the control center instead of the home screen.
The screen is really nice and larger than I’m used to. I realized I’m using the phone more and my iPad a bit less for browsing and some apps.

Notch? Stopped noticing it pretty quickly. Besides, it’s a pair of horns.

As for the forecasts of ‘weak’ sales of the X, I took the opportunity of the resulting price drop to purchase some more shares at $165. More than I’ve ever paid for AAPL, but I’m in it for the long haul.
Clearly the X, or any iPhone for that matter, isn’t for everyone. I love that we have choices. I’m pleased with mine.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I think there's a much subtler story here. Everywhere I look the story is:- sales down (a bit), profit up (a bit). However, in other 'news' there's a confusing product line up, quality has slipped (particularly in software) and they haven't managed to crack China or India as yet (from what I've seen reported). Perhaps none of that matters and a company can continue to increase profits without expanding its customer base but we'll see. The next couple of years are going to be fascinating.

Apparently the iPhone X is in demand in China.

India will be a difficult market to crack because of the high selling price of the majority of iPhone models. The SE has the best chance of cracking the Indian market.

 

[BvizioN]

Of course he’s going to spin it. Why would they be cutting production, to make it more exclusive?! LOL.

Not as much as spinners in this forum. Capable of spinning any news into a bad news.
[doublepost=1517571295][/doublepost]

There are those who chose not to go with the X AND actually aren’t looking for Apple to fail.

And then there are these who are. There are countless of comments in this forum claiming X would fail (like only few people would buy it) due to notch, no home button (like the previous ones have failed due to lack of 3,5mm headphone jack) no Touch ID and all that kind of nonsense. You really can't miss these, if you follow this forum. It is every year exactly same thing, not just with the X this year. But man, is it not hilarious when they are proven wrong and they go on a hibernation mode?

 

[criticasm]

Gee it's easy to say something "surpassed our expectations" when those expectations were never made known. What is known is that Apple wanted to get 50 million iPhone X's built in that 1/4 & problems reduced that to 30 million. So.. was their expectation to meet just 3/5 of their original projection?

The real truth is Apple were expecting the iPhone X to be their biggest selling product ever. A phone so radical that didn't just appeal to Apple cultists renewing their devices, but attract a large portion of new (Android) customers. The reality is it's only been 60% effective so a far. Also total iPhone sales were a million less than the same 1/4 last year. So they haven't even expanded their user base at all.

 

[AdonisSMU]

They don't break down sales to individual models, "but trust us... X topped the charts EVERY week (gleaming ping from Tim's tooth)!". Yeah frickin' right.

If only non-Apple companies could get away w/ such blatant secrecy, partial lies & spin. This company's arrogance & contempt for its users is sickening, to me.

Get help. Every company is doing the same thing or worse.

 

[BvizioN]

I asked a similar question in a different thread.

It isn't clear on how well the iPhone X is selling when compared to the iPhone 8.

It means the X have outsold all the other iPhone models every week. i am baffled people find this surprising.

 

[AdonisSMU]

I have yet to see one in the county I live in.

I see them everywhere in NYC. Literally everyone had one the first day.

 

[newellj]

well duh. was that ever in doubt?

Yes, there are people saying that the "8" outsold the X. But that only works if you combine 8 and 8 Plus models, which isn't a mistake anyone makes when they're actually buying a phone.
[doublepost=1517572939][/doublepost]

I see them all the time. Anecdotes are not facts. Why is this so difficult. We live in a world with billions of people. Any one person’s experience is not indicative of objective reality.

The real question is: what did his dog see?

 

[newellj]

They don't break down sales to individual models, "but trust us... X topped the charts EVERY week (gleaming ping from Tim's tooth)!". Yeah frickin' right.

If only non-Apple companies could get away w/ such blatant secrecy, partial lies & spin. This company's arrogance & contempt for its users is sickening, to me.

Don’t know how anyone can trust what they say, I mean they confidently didn’t tell anyone about the throttling, and they confidently do not tell you individual sales figures. You basically just have to trust what he says.....

If Apple were so confident they should separate their sales figures, it’s obvious the X has driven their ridiculous profit though and it seems they now rely even more on one product line!! Despite a drop in sales.

This is nonsense. No tech company breaks sales out like that, nor would they, ever. Expecting that is delusional.

 

[Piggie]

I will admit, it did/does kinda feel weird they they did not keep the top specs for the X model.

I am in agreement, and I know it's only money reasons, but the 1st model generally comes as they NEED to launch it, and in the design stage they need to work to a time, where they say. OK we have many ideas, but we need to stop NOW as we need to actually get this thing into production, and from that moment it's frozen.

Of course the pressure is then off the designers and they can carry on working on all the aspects they would have liked to do, but simply could not given the reality of needing to physically ship something.

This is when, either on the 2nd or 3rs iteration of the device, all those things they really wanted to do and get done can be added in.

It's much harder to build the 1st car from scratch and get to sale, than it is to then, following on from that, go round the whole car making improvements no you have the time and the initial pressure is off.

iPad1 to iPad2 was perhaps a major example of this effect

I'm sure if we list out the iPad models we can see where the BIG steps happened, and which models were the real ones where the put in all the bits to make it how they originally had imagined it could be.

And of course this is why sales drop off, as you get to a point where you have added almost all the nice things you wanted, and then future models are just polished a little, and people then keep their older models as all the major work and problems have been done/fixed.

 

[polterbyte]

Doom! Gloom! Aaaaaaahhhhhh!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

No surprise, those who said the x would be a failure are just people looking to hate to justify what phone they have or simply can’t afford it and clearly won’t admit so

Apple crushes the market as always in sales

To be exact Apple didn't "crush" it in sales, it actually missed by a few million units compared to same quarter last year, respectively: 77m 78m. So no beat there much less unit sales growth. What Apple "crushed" was revenue, likely because of the X's cost and margins. Old story of high price or high volume. But with services growing, Apple does depend on market share now more than ever. It's really a mixed report, which is why AAPL sank when the report was released then rose during the conference call, then went back to flat when investors we able to digest everything they learned.

 

[macjoshua]

Regardless of whether or not it has been successful (I would argue that it has been - just not as much as Apple hoped), much of the press lately has been negative. That's shaping public opinion. If the average person out there hears the phone isn't successful and that Apple is abandoning the X later this year, they won't buy it.

 

[H2SO4]

There is just one more piece of information we need to make this all complete.

Apple’s percentage share of profits in the mobile market for the quarter.

Granted, it’s never going to be anywhere near the record 103.6% in 2016. Man, what an epic quarter that was.

103% of the whole. Right.

 

[Ralfi]

This thread's confirmed Apple/Samsung etc. fanbois are a scurge on the internet...

 

[The Game 161]

To be exact Apple didn't "crush" it in sales, it actually missed by a few million units compared to same quarter last year, respectively: 77m 78m. So no beat there much less unit sales growth. What Apple "crushed" was revenue, likely because of the X's cost and margins. Old story of high price or high volume. But with services growing, Apple does depend on market share now more than ever. It's really a mixed report, which is why AAPL sank when the report was released then rose during the conference call, then went back to flat when investors we able to digest everything they learned.

I was talking more in general with the comp than last years mark but let’s not forget last years was an extra week which can have a huge affect in numbers. Certainly with how many phones Apple sells daily.

 

[Rogifan]

To be exact Apple didn't "crush" it in sales, it actually missed by a few million units compared to same quarter last year, respectively: 77m 78m. So no beat there much less unit sales growth. What Apple "crushed" was revenue, likely because of the X's cost and margins. Old story of high price or high volume. But with services growing, Apple does depend on market share now more than ever. It's really a mixed report, which is why AAPL sank when the report was released then rose during the conference call, then went back to flat when investors we able to digest everything they learned.

Except if you account for the extra week difference sales per week were higher this holiday quarter than the year previous. And gross margin was basically flat (38.4 vs 38.5 last year) which doesn’t sugggest that the X has higher margins. No doubt the stock is flat because of Q2 guidance but why Wall Street thinks Apple’s Q2 revenue should be up 24% YOY (when the holiday quarter was only 13%) makes no sense to me. Apple’s guide of 14-17% seems more reasonable.
[doublepost=1517575733][/doublepost]

There is just one more piece of information we need to make this all complete.

Apple’s percentage share of profits in the mobile market for the quarter.

Granted, it’s never going to be anywhere near the record 103.6% in 2016. Man, what an epic quarter that was.

Where do people get these numbers from? Apple doesn’t disclose profits just for iPhone or however “mobile market” is defined. Who does? I’m not aware of any company providing profit figures just for their smartphone business.
[doublepost=1517575993][/doublepost]

Regardless of whether or not it has been successful (I would argue that it has been - just not as much as Apple hoped), much of the press lately has been negative. That's shaping public opinion. If the average person out there hears the phone isn't successful and that Apple is abandoning the X later this year, they won't buy it.

Apple’s guidance for the holiday quarter was $84-87B revenue and gross margin of 38-38.5%. Apple actually reported 88.2B revenue and gross margins of 38.4%. So a slight beat on revenue and margins in line with guidance. Seems to me the quarter was as successful as Apple said it would be.

 

[Tiger8]

It's the best selling iPhone, okay. That doesn't tell us the forecast vs sold devices. Frankly, I don't really care and I'm just making a point. It's going to be a successful device and the 'Apple is doomed" mentality is hyperbole.

But this statement from Tim Cook that "iPhone X was our best selling device" doesn't really validate how successful the phone is vs their forecast for it. I work for the worlds #1 playground manufacturer, and while it's of course a completely different industry, when we don't hit our forecasted numbers we still manage to put a positive spin on the earnings reports. It's just the nature of business.

Finally someone who knows what they're talking about ! I did some consulting for some retailer and consumer goods companies, and what you are saying is true. It's so easy to look at one dimension and claim something as a success or a failure. But the reality is like you said there's more to it.

To add to your point: how much did the category expand? One of my former clients once went through a full reorg because their sales went up 8% by market volume (and so did revenue). However, during that same year the category grew by 15%, so while their numbers in isolation looked great, the full story was not.