Apple Forecasted to Sell Record-Breaking 240+ Million iPhones in 2021

[DocMultimedia]

I didn't think the upgrades (particularly camera) from 11Pro to 12Pro made it worth upgrading. We'll see about 13Pro. Currently sounds very iffy, the telescope lens a year from now sounds vastly better.

In any case, I hope they sell that many to keep the stock heading upward. (says a guy with lots of AAPL)

 

[nylonsteel]

commenting on the article picture -
the four monoliths

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I’m at a loss for how these sales volumes are physically possible.

How much income does one need for the purchase of an iPhone to be reasonable? I’m feeling like people making under $30K/year probably shouldn’t be dropping $2K on a phone. But you’re in the global top 1% if you’re making $30K/year or more. The world population is 8B, so the population who can reasonably afford an iPhone is around 80M.

But those people don’t buy a new phone every year. They only buy a new phone every 2-3 years. So really this puts a maximum on the number of sales possible around 30M. Oh, and a lot of these people who could buy an iPhone could also buy an Android instead. So let’s say 20M/year.

Maybe I should look at this from the opposite direction. Let’s say we’re talking 360M phone sales costing as much as Apple’s do. Factor in that people only buy every 2-3 years and the population of people buying these phones is around 750M - let’s just say it’s 10% of the global population. You need an annual income of $15K to be in this group. This means people are spending over 14% of their pretax income on owning a smartphone. Probably 20% post tax.

What about a house? Food? Clothing? Power? Water? A car? Saving for retirement?

Should we blame Apple for why people haven’t saved enough to retire, or why they can’t afford rent? I mean, yeah, personal responsibility and all that... but IDK, maybe our schools should be better funded and people wouldn’t be stupidly buying these phones they can’t afford?

Has anyone bought a used iPhone instead? That’s what I did - I got an 8+ when it was a year old for 50% of what it would have been new...

 

[Oscar_440]

Get your passport ready folks!. Get ready to pre-order this September. 5 months to ago...

I’m ready to order whatever Apple release, no matter if it’ll be cool or not... 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂

 

[_Spinn_]

Wow that's a lot of phones!

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Ives is an "AAPL Cheerleader" masquerading as a so-called Pro Stock Analyst, nothing more, nothing less.

CNBC should make him wear a Cheerleader "skirt" whenever he comes on their show.

BTW, Ives has been saying it's gonna be a Supercycle for years now !

And based upon last Q earnings it was the start of a supercycle so he called it a long time ago....

 

[sw1tcher]

According to TipRanks his success rate was 69% between Feb 2020 and Feb 2021 which sounds high but bear in mind he is focused on tech stocks and they have boomed in the past year due to the pandemic. Whether that will continue is not certain. Many commentators are predicting a crash as they see a tech stocks bubble with over inflated valuations on stocks with little or no history of making a profit.

You're looking at his overall performance for the past 12 months. I don't know how good or bad a 69% ratings success rate is, but if you look at his track record for AAPL alone, he's got a 93% success rate (28 out of 30 ratings were profitable) with an average return per rating for AAPL of 55.5%

That seems pretty good to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯





For comparison, Katy Huberty from Morgan Stanley (voted 2020's #1 ranked technology analyst by Institutional Investor) has an overall success rate of 63% for the past 12 month, and her success rate on AAPL is 78% with an average return per AAPL rating of 29.9%

 

[5105973]

How much phones do you have? 😮

3 in active service. 12 Pro Max, 12 mini and Samsung s21 Ultra. Only the mini and the Samsung have sims in them. I have a Pixel 3XL I play around on from time to time but it’s mostly retired because I don’t have as much free time to mess with it anymore.

I do actually use the active 3 regularly though. Lol some people are art aficionados, some love automobiles. I love smart phones. I dreamed of these gadgets since I was a little kid in the 70’s. I can’t believe they exist.

 

[Manzanito]

I’m at a loss for how these sales volumes are physically possible.

How much income does one need for the purchase of an iPhone to be reasonable? I’m feeling like people making under $30K/year probably shouldn’t be dropping $2K on a phone. But you’re in the global top 1% if you’re making $30K/year or more. The world population is 8B, so the population who can reasonably afford an iPhone is around 80M.

But those people don’t buy a new phone every year. They only buy a new phone every 2-3 years. So really this puts a maximum on the number of sales possible around 30M. Oh, and a lot of these people who could buy an iPhone could also buy an Android instead. So let’s say 20M/year.

Maybe I should look at this from the opposite direction. Let’s say we’re talking 360M phone sales costing as much as Apple’s do. Factor in that people only buy every 2-3 years and the population of people buying these phones is around 750M - let’s just say it’s 10% of the global population. You need an annual income of $15K to be in this group. This means people are spending over 14% of their pretax income on owning a smartphone. Probably 20% post tax.

What about a house? Food? Clothing? Power? Water? A car? Saving for retirement?

Should we blame Apple for why people haven’t saved enough to retire, or why they can’t afford rent? I mean, yeah, personal responsibility and all that... but IDK, maybe our schools should be better funded and people wouldn’t be stupidly buying these phones they can’t afford?

Has anyone bought a used iPhone instead? That’s what I did - I got an 8+ when it was a year old for 50% of what it would have been new...

It’s a sensible point, the one you’re making. But keep in mind two things:

iPhone prices go as low as 400$ for the SE model. You have to customize the biggest iPhone with as much memory as possible and add apple care on top of that to be on the vicinity of 2.000$, and not many customers are going to opt for that model.

People don’t usually switch phones annually.

With this precise generation, seems like a lot of us were on the 6s/6s plus and finally bought a new phone, so that’s a lot of people (iirc the 6s also was a hit).

 

[vipergts2207]

240+ million iPhones... Tens of millions of which will be the iPhone mini. So despite many people saying it's a flop, if Apple tops previous record sales, it likely wouldn't have happened without it.

I believe the number has been quoted as around 5% of iPhone sales have been for the mini? That's about 12 million units.

 

[mi7chy]

Thought I read somewhere that Samsung was losing a bit of market share to iPhone.

You read wrong. If you go on their web site almost all of their S21 line up is backordered till May due to demand. Pre-ordered mine early and still had to wait a month but worth the wait. Even their new A72/A52 mid rangers make iPhones look antiquated.

 

[vipergts2207]

I’m at a loss for how these sales volumes are physically possible.

How much income does one need for the purchase of an iPhone to be reasonable? I’m feeling like people making under $30K/year probably shouldn’t be dropping $2K on a phone. But you’re in the global top 1% if you’re making $30K/year or more. The world population is 8B, so the population who can reasonably afford an iPhone is around 80M.

But those people don’t buy a new phone every year. They only buy a new phone every 2-3 years. So really this puts a maximum on the number of sales possible around 30M. Oh, and a lot of these people who could buy an iPhone could also buy an Android instead. So let’s say 20M/year.

Maybe I should look at this from the opposite direction. Let’s say we’re talking 360M phone sales costing as much as Apple’s do. Factor in that people only buy every 2-3 years and the population of people buying these phones is around 750M - let’s just say it’s 10% of the global population. You need an annual income of $15K to be in this group. This means people are spending over 14% of their pretax income on owning a smartphone. Probably 20% post tax.

What about a house? Food? Clothing? Power? Water? A car? Saving for retirement?

Should we blame Apple for why people haven’t saved enough to retire, or why they can’t afford rent? I mean, yeah, personal responsibility and all that... but IDK, maybe our schools should be better funded and people wouldn’t be stupidly buying these phones they can’t afford?

Has anyone bought a used iPhone instead? That’s what I did - I got an 8+ when it was a year old for 50% of what it would have been new...

Why in the world are you doing any kind of math based on the assumption that everyone is buying iPhones that cost $2k? That's utter nonsense. Even a maxed out Pro Max is only $1400 and relatively few of those are being sold versus cheaper models. Even adding Apple Care with theft and loss and tax gets you to only $1800 or so.

iPhone 12 Mini Sales Lackluster Compared to Other Models

Apple's 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini, which is the smallest iPhone that has been released since the 2016 iPhone SE, may not be selling as well as...

www.macrumors.com

If you take the numbers there at face value, then well over half of iPhones sold are between $400 and $980. And that is US-only sales data at launch, the time and place the largest proportion of high-end, pricey devices move. Your take is simply awful.

 

[anthogag]

If Apple wants to sell 500 million iPhone 13's, put the anti-glare nano coating on the screen.

 

[Abazigal]

You read wrong. If you go on their web site almost all of their S21 line up is backordered till May due to demand. Pre-ordered mine early and still had to wait a month but worth the wait. Even their new A72/A52 mid rangers make iPhones look antiquated.

Back ordered due to high demand or shortage of processors?

 

[DeepIn2U]

Ives is an "AAPL Cheerleader" masquerading as a so-called Pro Stock Analyst, nothing more, nothing less.

CNBC should make him wear a Cheerleader "skirt" whenever he comes on their show.

BTW, Ives has been saying it's gonna be a Supercycle for years now !

I’m sorry but this year is a super cycle for the iPhone you doing it’s here, it’s being done, get over it, lets move on.

 

[MacLawyer]

You read wrong. If you go on their web site almost all of their S21 line up is backordered till May due to demand. Pre-ordered mine early and still had to wait a month but worth the wait. Even their new A72/A52 mid rangers make iPhones look antiquated.

4th quarter US smartphone sales

I think this is what I saw. But this is U.S. only. Cheers.

 

[planteater]

I have an 8+ and I’ve been ready to upgrade for a couple years now. I just need an iPhone worth upgrading to. Perhaps a the 14 might be it. Or the 15.

 

[mi7chy]

4th quarter US smartphone sales

I think this is what I saw. But this is U.S. only. Cheers.

If you want to cherry pick by quarter Samsung doubled Apple sales in 3Q2020 but for full 2020 year Samsung still outsold Apple.

https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-11-30-smartphone-market-share-3q20

S21 is far outselling the previous model and competition so wouldn't be surprised if 1Q2021 Samsung outsold Apple by 3 to 1.

 

[n00boflife]

MacRumors is generally well written, however I take issue with the use of forecasted.

Forecast is an irregular verb, meaning that its past forms don’t follow the general rule of adding ed to the base.

There are many verbs that are unchanged in past tense forms. You’d never say, for example, "I putted all my money into the healthcare IT tech stocks."

If you follow Associated Press (AP) style, stick with forecast.

 

[I7guy]

If you want to cherry pick by quarter Samsung doubled Apple sales in 3Q2020 but for full 2020 year Samsung still outsold Apple.

https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-11-30-smartphone-market-share-3q20

S21 is far outselling the previous model and competition so wouldn't be surprised if 1Q2021 Samsung outsold Apple by 3 to 1.

Sure worldwide sales vs US only. I'm never surprised when Samsung outsells Apple, because it sells far more phones on the low-end. The headliner would be Samsung sold 240 million S21.

 

[Madhava]

It’s a sensible point, the one you’re making. But keep in mind two things:

iPhone prices go as low as 400$ for the SE model. You have to customize the biggest iPhone with as much memory as possible and add apple care on top of that to be on the vicinity of 2.000$, and not many customers are going to opt for that model.

People don’t usually switch phones annually.

With this precise generation, seems like a lot of us were on the 6s/6s plus and finally bought a new phone, so that’s a lot of people (iirc the 6s also was a hit).

Could it be many people using 6/6s are finally upgrading as they will not get updates now

 

[Freeangel1]

At RF RADIATION levels well over the proper limits. Thats an awful lot of Brain Head or Neck Cancer.

NO THANKS!

Thats why I went back to a Samsung NOTE 8 lowest RF RADIATION phone other than a NOTE 1st Generation .17 RF RADIATION vs 1.0 for the current iPhone 12 model.

 

[ian87w]

With LG out of the picture hopefully many former LG user will move to iPhone.

Why? They can easily get a Samsung.

 

[MacBH928]

I’m at a loss for how these sales volumes are physically possible.

How much income does one need for the purchase of an iPhone to be reasonable? I’m feeling like people making under $30K/year probably shouldn’t be dropping $2K on a phone. But you’re in the global top 1% if you’re making $30K/year or more. The world population is 8B, so the population who can reasonably afford an iPhone is around 80M.

But those people don’t buy a new phone every year. They only buy a new phone every 2-3 years. So really this puts a maximum on the number of sales possible around 30M. Oh, and a lot of these people who could buy an iPhone could also buy an Android instead. So let’s say 20M/year.

Maybe I should look at this from the opposite direction. Let’s say we’re talking 360M phone sales costing as much as Apple’s do. Factor in that people only buy every 2-3 years and the population of people buying these phones is around 750M - let’s just say it’s 10% of the global population. You need an annual income of $15K to be in this group. This means people are spending over 14% of their pretax income on owning a smartphone. Probably 20% post tax.

What about a house? Food? Clothing? Power? Water? A car? Saving for retirement?

Should we blame Apple for why people haven’t saved enough to retire, or why they can’t afford rent? I mean, yeah, personal responsibility and all that... but IDK, maybe our schools should be better funded and people wouldn’t be stupidly buying these phones they can’t afford?

Has anyone bought a used iPhone instead? That’s what I did - I got an 8+ when it was a year old for 50% of what it would have been new...

I have come to 2 conclusions as to why this is happening. Smartphones is a saturated market and that we should not see such high sales.

1) People are switching to smartphones as the only 1 device, a PDA indeed. They are dropping ipads, laptops, desktops. Its a smartphone only world now which made me also figure out why people are buying those mammoth phablet size "cellphones". Its not a cellphone any more, its a personal computer in their pocket and everyone wants one.

2) People , and especially during the COVID19, has nothing better to do and just get a kick by getting the latest and greatest. It just gives them the feel good to own the greatest device out there. "Hey the new iPhone are out!". Kind of like when there is a new fashion trend and all the fashion enthusiasts jump on it. They are literally buying mindlessly.

 

[I7guy]

I have come to 2 conclusions as to why this is happening. Smartphones is a saturated market and that we should not see such high sales.

1) People are switching to smartphones as the only 1 device, a PDA indeed. They are dropping ipads, laptops, desktops. Its a smartphone only world now which made me also figure out why people are buying those mammoth phablet size "cellphones". Its not a cellphone any more, its a personal computer in their pocket and everyone wants one.

2) People , and especially during the COVID19, has nothing better to do and just get a kick by getting the latest and greatest. It just gives them the feel good to own the greatest device out there. "Hey the new iPhone are out!". Kind of like when there is a new fashion trend and all the fashion enthusiasts jump on it. They are literally buying mindlessly.

If anything, the chip shortage, ram shortage, etc, shows people have readopted tech that includes, ipads, laptops, and desktops. For me, last year, got new printers, new office furniture, built a new desktop, new monitors plus other tech to make my shelter in place cozy.

I also saved money by *not* commuting, which I used elsewhere. Maybe other people bought new phones as being home and being accessible by a reliable cell phone was a priority.