Apple Replaced 11 Million iPhone Batteries in 2018, Up From 1 to 2 Million

[dmylrea]

I’m surprised the iPhone X battery was included in the $29 offer. I took advantage and replaced the battery in my day 1 X on 12/31. Was at 88% health, now obviously like new again, and I might just keep it another year because of it. Wouldn’t have done it at the old $80 price. Odd decision.

So you're saying that had you not replaced the battery under the program, that you'd have chosen to spend >$1000 on a new phone this year instead of opting to just spend $79 (or whatever full price is on a X battery) to replace your degrading battery and make your VERY POWERFUL, VERY MODERN iPhone X "new again"?

I think we've reached a point where it makes sense to just replace the battery after a year or two (or three or four, depending on your needs) as phones now have more performance than we need and still perform well for many years.

 

[tridley68]

"We did it because we were caught slowing down phones without telling users, and had our arses sued to hell and back". Fixed that for you Timmy.

Very well put.

 

[nerdAFK]

So much for Apple's self-appointed "making the world a better place" reputation.

People can just rip that label off and stick these ****** ones on: pure greed, hubris, lying to customers...
And what is crazy about that is nobody can deny these. So sad.

 

[TMRJIJ]

MAYBE someone should've sacrificed 0,5mm of thickness (of about lets say, protruding cameras?) for a larger battery

Wouldn’t have made a difference. These Batteries can only last so long when used by these powerhouse mobile chips. Their problem was not telling customers what they were doing for managing it.

 

[Ankou_Sabat]

My iPhone 6S Plus was shutting down and rebooting when the battery was low and the ambient temperature was very hot or very cold, until the update that "slowed down phones". Once I had installed that update, those issues stopped, but the phone ran slower. That's nothing to sue over.

But that didn't fix your problem thats called masking the problem. They didn't fix the underlying CPU/power draw issues. You bought that phone and its performance is a metric you paid for. Their "fix" was to cut that performance back. This like buying a car you expect to go highway speeds but then suddenly can't do that anymore without issues like overheating. So the manufacturer "fixes" your car by making it only go up to 45 mph and doesn't tell you they limited your speed but "fixed" your car troubles. The issue isn't so much that they cut performance its that they were not transparent in what they did for *years* even when called out on it and it definitely had an affect in people unnecessarily buying new phones.

 

[tridley68]

Wouldn't it suck if they replaced them with the new same old suckie battery.

 

[cube]

Wouldn't it suck if they replaced them with the new same old suckie battery.

Apple "fixed" my MBP 3 times until they refused.

 

[ftaok]

It's not entirely clear why Apple didn't know the affects of the battery replacement program earlier in the year given that it ran throughout 2018, but Gruber speculates that while Apple knew battery replacements were higher than normal, the true effect of the replacement program did not become known until the new iPhone XS and XR models were released and fewer people upgraded.

Another factor could be that the volume of battery replacements increased towards the end of the year as the program was ending. I wonder how many of the 11 million replacements happened in December? I got my iPhone6 battery replacement in the last week of the year. I waited until I bought myself a new Xs (which happened in mid-December) before fixing the battery on the 6, as I didn't want to be without an iPhone for even a few hours.

I suspect there were lots of folks doing something similar and waited until the last moment to swap the batteries.

The associate at the Apple Store that helped me said they were completely swamped with battery appointments. Since I didn't need my phone back right away, I told her that they could take as long as they needed and I'll just come back some other time. I think they had dozens of appointments ahead of me and my quoted time was 4 hours.

 

[gnipgnop]

But that didn't fix your problem thats called masking the problem. They didn't fix the underlying CPU/power draw issues.

No smartphone vendor on the planet can "fix" voltage issues in phone sized lithium ion batteries. Every cell phone on the planet will have voltage supply issues if the battery is degraded, if the battery is exposed to cold temperatures, or if the battery charge is low. Those issues are specific to current lithium ion technology in phone sized batteries. It really has nothing to do with Apple specifically.

 

[ftaok]

So at most, 10M people opted for a new battery over a new phone. This doesn't explain all the lower iPhone sales.

Apple put the blame on lower iPhone revenues squarely on the slowdown in China. The battery replacement thing was likely had a notable, but not hugely significant impact.

EDIT - see below for additional thoughts.

If 10 million users didn’t upgrade, that would account for the entire amount of the guidance revenue miss.

Interesting thought. Let's use 9 million as the number. 11 million battery replacements minus the 2 million that they do on a normal year.

Let's multiply 9 million by $800 (estimated iPhone ASP for Q1-2019). That's $7.2B. Apple guided down on their top line revenue numbers by between $5B and $9B.

I'd say that that's a huge impact and much more than just "notable".

 

[Ploki]

Wouldn't it suck if they replaced them with the new same old suckie battery.

they do. Mine died after less than a year

 

[gnipgnop]

Let's multiply 9 million by $800 (estimated iPhone ASP for Q1-2019). That's $7.2B. Apple guided down on their top line revenue numbers by between $5B and $9B.

You can't really assume that all 9 million would have upgraded their phones. That said, even a minority percentage of that number = significant enough revenue to mention, which is why Apple did mention it.

 

[andyorkney]

We all can understand, why Apple started this battery replacement program:
1. Apple faced to change iOS software for iPhone7, 7+, 8, 8+ and X to escape the QUALCOMM court case to a heavy shorter battery time
2. Same reason for the price cut of the charged replacement

Surely not gift or mercy or heart to customer's wallet

...And not this fake explanation of an excuse for low battery shut off in iOS
(Cook, what a silly game!)

Last but not least: Maybe there are other secrets hidden in battery technique – remember it was started not long after the battery explosions in Samsung note 7.

3. This fake explanation helps him/Apple to cover the real reason of selling decline why customers hesitate to buy and change to a new: Too hight price levels reached to realize these expensive iPhones XS, XS max and XR filled with Face ID and OLED...

So you’ll not have seen the research on the impact of processor demand causing peak power demand on aged battery that results in current drop and immediate shutdown of computing devices. This is commonly known chemistry/physics. Also if 2/3rds of those 11 million people who took advantage of the battery replacement programme then did not upgrade to a new device this would have resulted in approx 7 million people x $700 = circa $5billion loss of revenue $89B - $84B = $5B . I’m sure that this is not the whole story, and Chinese market also had a significant impact but the numbers and explanations do add up. There are clear errors of judgement on Apple’s behalf, but no conspiracy theory.

 

[ftaok]

You can't really assume that all 9 million would have upgraded their phones. That said, even a minority percentage of that number = significant enough revenue to mention, which is why Apple did mention it.

Obviously all 9 million would have updated their phones (I swapped batteries and bought a new iPhone). But we've already subtracted the 2 million in a typical year. In any case, subtract out a few million and use that number. Heck, use a different ASP if you think that these battery holdout users would go for the lower cost iPhones.

Like you've indicated, it's still a big number and runs counter to my original line of thinking.

 

[JustToBlock]

I don't normally post but...

If planned obsolescence was fake news, then how can these phones no longer becoming obsolete be blamed for their plans being altered?

If Cook is basically saying, "People kept their phones longer than we planned for them to keep them thanks to this stupid repair program we were forced to setup," how is that NOT an admission of planned obsolescence?

 

[raybo]

This all day. You are correct, iOS 12 and the battery replacement program affected upgrades, but the whole purpose of iOS 12 was to push longevity and stability, which helped older iPhone models performance, thus resulting in consumers to continue use the phone as they normally would, because they’re operating as normal. So either way, Apples intentions with iOS and the battery replacement program had a direct effect on upgrades, aside from the increased price points for the newest iPhones.

I would have probably gotten an XR with the trade-in had I not been able to replace the battery in the 6s, which is all I need right now. Waiting for 5G, hoping the 6s lasts until then... I think the "waiting for 5G" is yet another reason that some 6s/7/8 owners opted to hold off...

 

[Jay42]

The cat is out of the bag. Degraded performance was the biggest catalyst for users to upgrade. Once users know they can restore performance with a battery swap, the incentive to upgrade is greatly diminished. Compounded even further by steeper upgrade costs.

 

[avanpelt]

In February 2018, Cook said that Apple had not considered how the battery replacement program would impact iPhone upgrade rates, but it's clear it ultimately had an impact on Apple's bottom line.

I wish they'd stop it with the "we're super altruistic" nonsense. It just makes them look silly in instances like this because if the bolded statement above is true, one pretty much has to conclude that they're either lying or they're incredibly naive.

Cook should've said, "The battery replacement program could impact iPhone upgrades this year -- we're well aware of that. We initiated this discounted battery replacement program because it was the right thing to do." That's still a very altruistic statement, actually; and it would've earned a lot more points in my book than Tim Cook saying, in effect, "iPhone upgrades could be impacted by the battery replacement program? That didn't even cross our minds."

 

[Baymowe335]

You can't really assume that all 9 million would have upgraded their phones. That said, even a minority percentage of that number = significant enough revenue to mention, which is why Apple did mention it.

Agree with you it was an impact but the revenue guide down was only for the fourth quarter and those 9M were spread across the whole year.

Perhaps fourth quarter was the busiest quarter for battery replacement, but certainly not.all 9M.

Apple also told us that the revenue shortfall was over 100% China and most of that was China iPhone. Battery replacements were an impact, but China was by far the biggest. Perhaps the Chinese also replaced batteries and kept their current iPhones at a much higher rate.

 

[thadoggfather]

Kind of brilliant of Apple to blame lack of sales on China and battery replacements rather than stifled innovation and lack of reasons for a lot of people to upgrade

China, a cellphone market most Americans cant possibly wrap their heads around (myself included), so they can say anything.. but I believe it, that the Chinese dont want to spend $1000+ on phones when Huawei is crushing it and the low end budget models have never been more competitive

And battery replacements, reduced in cost as a PR campaign to white wash that they were caught with their pants down with no sense of transparency.. but now they are "Tremendously discounted" according to Tim.

What happens when 2019 iPhones dont sell well, if they're XSS/XRS models with same crazy pricing? And without the cheap battery upgrades since that is now cut off?

 

[nazaar]

Unbelievably pathetic, such a bad Apple. I've had enough of TC and quite enough Apple and their price gouging.

 

[LordVic]

I don't normally post but...

If planned obsolescence was fake news, then how can these phones no longer becoming obsolete be blamed for their plans being altered?

If Cook is basically saying, "People kept their phones longer than we planned for them to keep them thanks to this stupid repair program we were forced to setup," how is that NOT an admission of planned obsolescence?

I'm not sure it was intentional. I think they legitimately screwed up on the design specs for battery draw and underspecced the devices.

was it intentional to create a planned obsolecense or was it accidental and an oversight? We will never known unless there's some investigation that reveals that they did it intentionally.

I also tend to side on the old Hanlans razer:"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

In the case of the underspecced batteries, I believe Apple was doing it to save costs and prioritize other stuff over battery capacities, which had the unintended consequences of underspecced batteries.

 

[Abazigal]

"We did it because we were caught slowing down phones without telling users, and had our arses sued to hell and back". Fixed that for you Timmy.

Can’t believe this comment got so many likes.

Apple’s only mistake was trying to apply a software fix to address a hardware issue, but sure, I guess framing it as an attempt to screw their users over to force upgrades is better for garnering views and clicks.

I guess Apple should have just let those iPhones randomly reboot. Users would still have upgraded, and Apple would have saved themselves all that negative press.

 

[jicon]

I'm of the belief that you should be able to get 5 years out of a device. Phone, tablet, laptop... If I'm spending $1700+ CAD on a 256GB model Xs, I'm not ponying up that amount of money every two years. No way. Great devices, but if an $80 battery gets me along for another 2.5 years, I'd prefer that route.

 

[ChazSch]

my wife and I both have iPhone 6's. I use mine a ton, my wife - hardly at all.

My battery was replaced in March with over 1200 cycles on it. BUT I still have issues. I believe my wifi chip is damaged. It takes a LONG time to to connect to the wifi thru mail. I get dropped safari connections too. Tons of lag, esp keyboard in messages and mail.

my wife said "eh, my phone runs fine, why replace the battery". Its a 4+ year old battery - runs fine. She drains it to maybe 75% every day and charges it again.

I believe were and tear on the device has more to do with it than battery drainage