Apple to Stop Providing Unit Sales Data for iPhone, iPad and Mac Starting With December Quarter

[ThatGuyInLa]

When nearly all your companies profits are from a single segment, the iPhone, you have to hide it. Having all your eggs in one basket just means a harder and faster fall if things ever go south. So, do what you can to mask it. Amazed it took one slightly off report to trigger it though. Shows they know how important it really is to their bottom line.

No iPhone and Apple is a Gateway 2000 at best.

 

[dumastudetto]

Just a nice correction. Or do you think apples stock will jusy continue to go up with no correction? Doubtful

I wouldn't be betting against them while they continue putting out industry leading products like iPhone XS, iPad Pro, Apple Watch, AirPods and HomePod.

 

[aakshey]

Beginning of the end. Cook is a short-term disaster. He has no vision. Change, NOW! Before it is too late.

True that.

 

[kstotlani]

The company is selling more of every product than they ever have. Who exactly are they losing?

What exactly is a great product to you? The iPhone literally blows out every other phone in the market. In fact, 3 year old iPhones are still destroying brand new androids in benchmark tests. Same with most every other product.

I am not sure why you quoted my post but like I said they lost me as a customer. Now you can be arrogant and say they don’t need me but that is not the way a retail company should look at the market. I was a Mac user till my old Mac died. Main purpose was non pro family photography so use of Lightroom and maybe hobby programming and experimenting with new technologies. I can do that on windows too but I loved the experience of a Mac. The price rise meant that the experience was not worth it.

I agree that iPhone is the best phone in the market considering the eco system and the superior hardware but some choices are indicative of price gouging. 64GB iPhones in 2018? Again you would argue about iCloud but that is not a valid argument since you have to pay for that service. It wasn’t very expensive to get a 128GB module without much loss to Apple but they chose to price gouge. Face ID is absolutely unnecessary technology. I know lot of people argue how it works magically. I know many friends who turned it off because they were so annoyed. I am struggling with it myself making it work in bed and at various angles. Touchbar is just useless but Apple is still trying to push this technology.

A great product doesn’t mean you can charge whatever price you think is right to make higher margins in the short term because the smartphone market is satrurated. Companies are supposed to make investments for innovation but Apple has chosen to tax the consumer for the market conditions. The effect of that is I will keep my phone for 3-4 years rather than upgrade in 2. It’s a viscous circle which long term only a wealthy company like Apple could have beaten but they chose to increase prices. They have too many assembly lines for phones. Could they have concentrated on fewer versions and improve the yield and cost? Not everyone is an Apple hater but I will take care of how I spend my money. In India I can buy the Note 9 at half the price of the iPhone XS Max. If I was not a travelling consultant and buy it from US I might have just chosen the note 9. The point I am trying to make with this is I really want Apple to do well so I can continue to buy great products but the price rise is letting me down.

 

[x-evil-x]

I wouldn't be betting against them while they continue putting out industry leading products like iPhone XS, iPad Pro, Apple Watch, AirPods and HomePod.

Don’t be so blind. While they continue to have good products. Price gouging has been in full effect for a few years now. It’s like rallying with something going straight up. When does it end? What happens at the peak of a bubble?

 

[gijoeinla]

I feel personally that they've reached a point where the products don't offer enough value. Their stuff has always been expensive but it's now reaching such a high level that for the first time in almost twenty years I'm considering alternative products and ecosystems, I'm talking Windows + Android.

I'm not saying Apple is doomed, I don't think they're in trouble. But I do feel like they are entering this phase of their life where they're pushing a boulder up a mountain (high revenue and profit margins) and eventually it's going to get to the top and quickly go down the other side as consumers exit the brand due to it being too expensive and not offering the things Apple had been known for in the past (ease of use, functionality, great design and intuitiveness etc).

To me the company now more than ever cares about profit beyond all else. In the past I really truly believed they cared about making great products. Now I think they only care about making great margins and everything else is secondary to that goal.

I am not currently an Apple stock holder but I have been in the past. I think they're probably 75% of the way up that mountain I just spoke about, but this is all just my opinion I'm sure many here will disagree with me and that's perfectly fine.

Wait —- what? Why is smartphone saturation not a reality? Apples pricing strategy is reflective to many factors. People are keeping their phones longer. There are not more “subsidies” - all those phones are gone - obsolete. How much “faster” does faster matter to the average phone owner? They don’t care. No phone is doing anything dramatic. The smartphone as we know it today has matured.

Um - the Apple Watch is a revolutionary device that’s just going mainstream. Has huge upside.. the AirPods are revultionary and huge.

Wow how soon many of you “doubters” forget... three years ago Wall Street wrote Apple’s obituary bc they claimed their ASP’s were “all that mattered” and that those would go down and “never rebound”. Really?

I mean what company on earth “forecasts” 87-90 billion in sales and that’s disappointing considering the political environment in the U S is so so unstable and trade is in an upheaval.. what would ANY responsible corporation do? Seriously. Who here knows where the world ecoonomy is going? Who?

The housing and commercial real estate market is headed for a way bigger collapse than 10 years ago. It’s already starting to slow. Mr Trump will run out of gas once the economy tanks. Watch. Apple and every other company is not immune to global instability.

 

[x-evil-x]

Wait —- what? Why is smartphone saturation not a reality? Apples pricing strategy is reflective to many factors. People are keeping their phones longer. There are not more “subsidies” - all those phones are gone - obsolete. How much “faster” does faster matter to the average phone owner? They don’t care. No phone is doing anything dramatic. The smartphone as we know it today has matured.

Um - the Apple Watch is a revolutionary device that’s just going mainstream. Has huge upside.. the AirPods are revultionary and huge.

Wow how soon many of you “doubters” forget... three years ago Wall Street wrote Apple’s obituary bc they claimed their ASP’s were “all that mattered” and that those would go down and “never rebound”. Really?

I mean what company on earth “forecasts” 87-90 billion in sales and that’s disappointing considering the political environment in the U S is so so unstable and trade is in an upheaval.. what would ANY responsible corporation do? Seriously. Who here knows where the world ecoonomy is going? Who?

The housing and commercial real estate market is headed for a way bigger collapse than 10 years ago. It’s already starting to slow. Mr Trump will run out of gas once the economy tanks. Watch. Apple and every other company is not immune to global instability.

I do think the market has bigger things to worry about with what is going on right now.
Who really wants to be spending 1200$ on a phone right now when the economy is very rocky at the moment. Sales will slow more and more with these high prices and the way customers are treated. Apple isn’t really giving customers a nice feeling when they remove the headphone jack. Include the adapter for a year or two and now drop
It from the box. Don’t include fast charging like the rest of the competition and ship with just the bare essentials having customers to pay more things that should be included in the price. Don’t get me started on the 64-256 up sale for the x and xs this year which really makes me mad. They offer the 128 for the xr at a small 50$ Bump which is nice but not for either “premium” phones....
Apple should be pleasing the customers not making them mad at pricing strategies to fill their pockets More. It’s just bad business. I don’t see their stock continuing to rise much from here on.

 

[Sedulous]

The problem is that prices will force people to go to other options. Many times those long-time Apple customers will discover that other options are actually ok... or even really great and never go back. I know as things looks now, Apple has lost me as a computer customer and I no longer unequivocally advise others to buy any model of Mac. It saddens me. For many years I had been a strong proponent of Apple (and been a member of MacRumors nearly since this site started).

It is astounding that Apple makes computers that have soldered storage and zero water resistance. In the very least they should "innovate" with some water resistance at least on par with something found on Dell or Lenovo... then at least that soldered storage is better protected. Or maybe Apple think all that glue somehow helps the customer? In the end, I think Apple's strategy of cranking up prices on their poorly designed computers will end their computer business.

As for the iDevices sector, their stinginess on basic features like storage is inexcusable. While I don't think most users really need more than 128-256 GB on a phone, the price premium charged for the storage upgrades is a bit steep (and even worse value proposition on Macs... $1400 for a 2TB SSD, no thanks). It is also in very poor taste to not include a higher power charger considering both the price and much larger batteries compared to when the standard 5W charger was sufficient.

Lastly, it is also crummy that Apple has not increased complimentary iCloud storage. 5GB shared across all devices is a joke.

 

[Solomani]

Apple's competitors have been doing the same thing for years: Amazon and Samsung among them….. non-announcing specific unit sales.

Apple is simply doing the same thing now, as it does Apple no favors to publicly announce these things openly to the public. If anything, it only makes them a target for market short-sellers. Samsung and Amazon figured that out long ago. Now Apple is doing the same. They don't have any SEC or NASDAQ obligation to provide these public stats.

However, as an AAPL shareholder …. I sure as hell want these statistics to be made available to me, since I am owed corporate transparency as a shareholder in the company. At the very least I would like the statistics provided to me during the annual prospectus/investors reports. It's the same big fat envelope I get from Apple every year, inviting me to their annual Cupertino shareholders (and Board of Directors) meeting.

 

[vaxes]

For years I was a every other year iPhone guy.
But then I bought the 7 plus out right and decided I was going to become a every year iPhone guy.

It’s 2 years later and I still have that 7.
2 years ago apples flag ship top phone, 7 plus 256gb cost me £1k.
The best of the best, now to get apples best of the best it costs me £1.5k.

What do I get for that extra £500?
Half a tb and a screen that in real terms 16x9 isn’t any bigger than my 7plus.
(OLED, Face ID and faster grahpics)
Does that justify the extra £500, they don’t even put a fast charger in the box.

I think what we will see now is the die hards like me holding onto phones for longer.

It will become like the iPad market.
Where people hold onto them for years.

I have a 64gb Retnia iPad3 that is stuck on iOS9. I use it to play movies and surf the net, which it does perfectly. I have no intention to upgrade because the iPad Pro is so expensive.

-AE

 

[PickUrPoison]

For years I was a every other year iPhone guy.
But then I bought the 7 plus out right and decided I was going to become a every year iPhone guy.

It’s 2 years later and I still have that 7.
2 years ago apples flag ship top phone, 7 plus 256gb cost me £1k.
The best of the best, now to get apples best of the best it costs me £1.5k.

What do I get for that extra £500?
Half a tb and a screen that in real terms 16x9 isn’t any bigger than my 7plus.
(OLED, Face ID and faster grahpics)
Does that justify the extra £500, they don’t even put a fast charger in the box.

I think what we will see now is the die hards like me holding onto phones for longer.

It will become like the iPad market.
Where people hold onto them for years.

I have a 64gb Retnia iPad3 that is stuck on iOS9. I use it to play movies and surf the net, which it does perfectly. I have no intention to upgrade because the iPad Pro is so expensive.

-AE

The XR is the 2018 equivalent to your 7 Plus, no point to comparing it to “Apple’s best of the best”.

The XR is £899 for the 256GB.

 

[x-evil-x]

The XR is the 2018 equivalent to your 7 Plus, no point to comparing it to “Apple’s best of the best”.

The XR is £899 for the 256GB.

Not really. The plus models had better screens. Dual cameras. Force touch. The xr is the “budget” plus series/premium series phone. The plus phones where never lacking features.

 

[Avenged110]

Post quickly, get the anti-Apple jab in early, and rack up some easy likes.

It’s step 1 in the MacRumors rulebook.

If that's step 1, step 2 is definitely endless bitching about it.

 

[partsofspeech]

Logically, accountants at Apple can create operation revenue withtout the constraint of concrete sales data.

 

[Ramchi]

First indication continuous price increase, second indication stop giving numbers, what will the next indication...

 

[alexgowers]

When you have share holders, they want transparency. However far too much scrutiny is put on these figures as they represent almost all of apples profits. If phones don't sell well share holders panic. I can see why they want to stop that now they are so highly valued. In these days of misinformation though, I'm not sure that's a good idea, someone will instead leak or make figures up anyway. At least the old way apple could control the chaos.

 

[adnbek]

What’s with these hateful commenters rushing to be the first posters?

Oh hi! You must be new here. Welcome to Macrumors and enjoy your stay!

 

[FFR]

I am not sure why you quoted my post but like I said they lost me as a customer. Now you can be arrogant and say they don’t need me but that is not the way a retail company should look at the market. I was a Mac user till my old Mac died. Main purpose was non pro family photography so use of Lightroom and maybe hobby programming and experimenting with new technologies. I can do that on windows too but I loved the experience of a Mac. The price rise meant that the experience was not worth it.

I agree that iPhone is the best phone in the market considering the eco system and the superior hardware but some choices are indicative of price gouging. 64GB iPhones in 2018? Again you would argue about iCloud but that is not a valid argument since you have to pay for that service. It wasn’t very expensive to get a 128GB module without much loss to Apple but they chose to price gouge. Face ID is absolutely unnecessary technology. I know lot of people argue how it works magically. I know many friends who turned it off because they were so annoyed. I am struggling with it myself making it work in bed and at various angles. Touchbar is just useless but Apple is still trying to push this technology.

A great product doesn’t mean you can charge whatever price you think is right to make higher margins in the short term because the smartphone market is satrurated. Companies are supposed to make investments for innovation but Apple has chosen to tax the consumer for the market conditions. The effect of that is I will keep my phone for 3-4 years rather than upgrade in 2. It’s a viscous circle which long term only a wealthy company like Apple could have beaten but they chose to increase prices. They have too many assembly lines for phones. Could they have concentrated on fewer versions and improve the yield and cost? Not everyone is an Apple hater but I will take care of how I spend my money. In India I can buy the Note 9 at half the price of the iPhone XS Max. If I was not a travelling consultant and buy it from US I might have just chosen the note 9. The point I am trying to make with this is I really want Apple to do well so I can continue to buy great products but the price rise is letting me down.

Yeah no one really cares about India or the note 9 at the moment.

How many smartphones above $800 dollars does India sell per quarter?

About 4 million. That’s it.

Do you know how many smarphones India sells in the iPhone X’s/Xs max range per quarter?
Little less than a half a million, and guess what they are basically only iPhones Xs and Xs max at that point.

Yeah note 9 is half the cost because Samsung is forced to eat the added cost through promotional and marketing expenditure.

 

[FFR]

First indication continuous price increase, second indication stop giving numbers, what will the next indication...

In apples case increase in revenue or haven’t you been paying attention?

 

[killhippie]

This is what happens when you overprice phones and tablets all on the back of a brand, but with no substantial gain apart from meaningless benchmarks. I loved Apple gear but now no so much, not because I cant afford it although the iPad prices made me choke on my coffee slightly. Truly rich people generally see value but don't overspend on toys these days, they are frugal beyond belief. Oddly enough, its generally the average Joe that likes to boast or have the latest and greatest (not all of course, there are exceptions to all rules)

The new iPads look amazing and are really fast with that A12X...but still no file system, no go for a full on Mac replacement for myself. My iPhone XS in my country with Applecare was £1393 ($1,815) with a silicone case costing £45 ($58) which is ridiculous, sorry its a cheap lump of silicone, yes it fits better than most, but nope its not worth the money they charge in my view but it has an Apple logo so that explains the cost.

I think with worries in Europe with Brexit, etc people are not buying new tech so often, and phones can now last years. Why update then when in truth the XS I own, which although beautiful hasn't done anything that much better than my old 7 for my productivity. OLED on phones is not the same as OLED on TV's and the hype train is low on customers it seems.

So now they hide unit sales as its almost a bit embarrassing to admit the smartphone market has matured, Apple don't offer anything truly innovative over many other cheaper brands now, and if it wasn't for iOS, and my current lock in with iOS and macOS I would have gone with a Huawei mate 20 Pro this year, and maybe a easily upgradable windows computer last year not a £3000+ iMac. After all windows computers can be easily upgraded and have parts replaced (tower forms) and can last a very long time indeed/ As to iPads, my Air 2 will have to struggle on as the key 128mb size is not there and it should be the size offered at the starting price they are asking for the iPad Pro's.

No wonder they want to hide unit sales going forward, Apple are pricing themselves out of the market by being truly greedy and that's a real same. In my view of course.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

As I’ve mentioned in an another thread, Apple is being extremely price aggressive against its customers.

Hiding unit sales, once a very interesting number used in Keynotes its Apple acknowledgement of this.

 

[nickgovier]

.

 

[MacBH928]

There is a thing called market saturation. When no one owns a car and a someone invents the car, expect everyone to buy one. 10 years later when everyone already has a car, you can't forever have growing sales.

It kind of makes me angry that nothing is enough anymore, back in 1998 they would have been happy if they sold few tens of thousands of iMacs. Now they want to sell 10M+ monthly.

 

[HacKage]

I can't think of many other companies where they rely so heavily on just one product line. If iPhone unit sales drop but per unit profit increases, this will allow Apple to continue to paint a very rosy picture. If the unit sales continue to drop, we may see Apple looking to cut costs even further while increasing sales cost in order to keep the revenue numbers up. The problem is this is very much like a swan on a lake, everything above water looking great, everything under water going like crazy.

The moment that the iPhone stops selling the amounts they need due to market saturation or due to a competitor, then Apple is in the ****! Nobody thought Nokia or Blackberry could ever fail. This isn't an "Apple is doomed" post, but it would be folly to think they are too big to fail, especially when iPhone makes up more than half of their whole business.

 

[x-evil-x]

This is what happens when you overprice phones and tablets all on the back of a brand, but with no substantial gain apart from meaningless benchmarks. I loved Apple gear but now no so much, not because I cant afford it although the iPad prices made me choke on my coffee slightly. Truly rich people generally see value but don't overspend on toys these days, they are frugal beyond belief. Oddly enough, its generally the average Joe that likes to boast or have the latest and greatest (not all of course, there are exceptions to all rules)

The new iPads look amazing and are really fast with that A12X...but still no file system, no go for a full on Mac replacement for myself. My iPhone XS in my country with Applecare was £1393 ($1,815) with a silicone case costing £45 ($58) which is ridiculous, sorry its a cheap lump of silicone, yes it fits better than most, but nope its not worth the money they charge in my view but it has an Apple logo so that explains the cost.

I think with worries in Europe with Brexit, etc people are not buying new tech so often, and phones can now last years. Why update then when in truth the XS I own, which although beautiful hasn't done anything that much better than my old 7 for my productivity. OLED on phones is not the same as OLED on TV's and the hype train is low on customers it seems.

So now they hide unit sales as its almost a bit embarrassing to admit the smartphone market has matured, Apple don't offer anything truly innovative over many other cheaper brands now, and if it wasn't for iOS, and my current lock in with iOS and macOS I would have gone with a Huawei mate 20 Pro this year, and maybe a easily upgradable windows computer last year not a £3000+ iMac. After all windows computers can be easily upgraded and have parts replaced (tower forms) and can last a very long time indeed/ As to iPads, my Air 2 will have to struggle on as the key 128mb size is not there and it should be the size offered at the starting price they are asking for the iPad Pro's.

No wonder they want to hide unit sales going forward, Apple are pricing themselves out of the market by being truly greedy and that's a real same. In my view of course.

greed is very bad for companies. Apple should be working on making customers happy and its doing the complete opposite right now.
Apple knows how to make its customers happy and they are steering in the opposite direction.
[doublepost=1541154135][/doublepost]

They aren't changing this just for the sake of it. They knew this would be perceived negatively by investors, yet did it anyway. That tells you they are expecting to need this obfuscation in future quarters...

If I was apple I would of stopped providing the data after iPhone 6/6+ sales. End it on a high note in sales and decent prices. It would of seemed ok to do then but with all the pricing the last few years doing it now isnt a good plan for apple.