Apple's iPhone 11 Was the Most Popular Smartphone in Q1 2020

[thenahon]

So I upgraded from the smaller iPhone XS in the fall of last year to the iPhone 11. I did it to save money on the monthly cost of the iPhone upgrade program. Unfortunately I’ve started to realize that the screen size on the 11 is just too large. I miss the Xs and its 5.4" display.

Based on rumors, it seems like the 6.1” (iPhones 11 & Xr) size is going to stick around and if I want the Pro iPhone this fall, I’ll have to stay with the 6.1" size. If I want the 5.4” (iPhones X, Xs, 11 Pro) screen size I’ll be getting a slight refresh of what I already have.

So I’m wondering....

Do I upgrade early now to the 11 Pro 5.4”? Do I hold out for the “12” and risk being “stuck” with a minor refresh but get the screen size I prefer?

 

[JCCL]

My XR seems to me to perform well. In what way do you consider them junk? I’m not looking for an argument; rather I’m genuinely curious how the 11 could be so superior.

I was going to ask this.......Don't really understand how the XR's performance could be junk when compared to an 11. I have a 11 Pro Max myself and when comparing to XS Max and a XR I have access to, they all seem to perform pretty much at the same speed in real world usage.

 

[ian87w]

What few know is that the 11 offers true High Performance, & that the XR is pure junk (when it comes to Perf) !

I'm confused. The XR has the same A12 as the Xs/Xs Max. How it becomes "pure junk," when it is the same formula as the 11 (same A13 as 11 Pro/ProMax)? 11 and XR also have the same screen. In fact, the XR is the progenitor of this lineup.
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I'd imagine whatever does more for the bottom line is the most important. Market share does nothing bud feed their advertising business and Samsung hasn't had a major hit phone in years. It seems that more and more people keep coming back to Apple as their base keeps growing.

It's true. Revenue is one thing, but it is pointless when you have almost no profit. A business cannot grow without profit, and amongst all phone makers, Apple is doing a better job.
Samsung has hits, but they are the low end Galaxy A01 and low mid-range A50 series. That doesn't spell well to Samsung's profit, thus they are pushing the top end with the S20 ultra and foldables, to gain higher margins on that segment.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Almost 28 million for all the iPhone 11 models sold on 1Q. Crazy really

Can imagine iPhone holding top 4 spots if I’m honest this time next year

Imagine if there wasn’t a pandemic the numbers would be even higher.
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I don't think it was the main thought behind your comment, but when people talk about why Apple is rarely the first to deploy hardware technology X in their phones, the manufacturing scale that this article highlights is often overlooked. In the lifecycle of new technology, it starts off being viable to manufacture in smaller quantities and then as it begins to mature it becomes easier to mass produce. This can *sometimes* be a situation that ties Apple's hands when deciding what can be put in their phones. As with OLED back just before the iPhone X came out (and why OLED only shipped on the premium model that year), Apple was having to wait for OLED production to hit a scale that could support the volume of devices they'd need to sell. The larger volume of sales also requires a longer production ramp time which makes pivoting harder and gambles have to be made as to whether tech will be ready when they need it and sometimes Apple plays it safe. It's a side effect/trade-off of their method this article describes of making fewer phone models and making them well such that the demand for those few models is very high.

Samsung has the most capability here as their flagships don't sell as many units as Apple's (though of course their overall handset numbers are higher) so they don't have as much scale to worry about, coupled with the fact that they are a huge (and very successful) global hardware manufacturer. Even with that capability though we've seen other smaller Android based companies come out with flagship phones with pretty cool tech that even Samsung can't get into their phones and make some waves.

Apple can and does benefit from this though because it lets smaller phone manufactures put out products with more edgy and cool features and lets them see what sticks with folks/what gets good reviews and can use that as an input into their decision making as to what goes into the next iPhone.

Samsung perfected OLED production years ago. It’s not just their flagships they use OLED panels in, they use them in their mid range and budget phones. Combined Samsung sell more phones than Apple, albeit most of them cheaper. Samsung have had the capacity to make OLED panels years ago. Samsung are making OLED displays for pretty much the whole industry. Apple isn’t their only customer.

Apple have a road map and they very rarely deviate from it even if the technology is ready. They could have used OLED displays at least a year or two earlier but didn’t as it wasn’t what they had planned for.

 

[fokmik]

So I upgraded from the smaller iPhone XS in the fall of last year to the iPhone 11. I did it to save money on the monthly cost of the iPhone upgrade program. Unfortunately I’ve started to realize that the screen size on the 11 is just too large. I miss the Xs and its 5.4" display.

Based on rumors, it seems like the 6.1” (iPhones 11 & Xr) size is going to stick around and if I want the Pro iPhone this fall, I’ll have to stay with the 6.1" size. If I want the 5.4” (iPhones X, Xs, 11 Pro) screen size I’ll be getting a slight refresh of what I already have.

So I’m wondering....

Do I upgrade early now to the 11 Pro 5.4”? Do I hold out for the “12” and risk being “stuck” with a minor refresh but get the screen size I prefer?

No iphone has 5.4", not even "your iphone XS" so stop with the lies and miss informations
The rumour is that an iphone 12 will have 5.4" and thats it, maybe you had an samsung with 5.4"

 

[BvizioN]

2. satisfaction..Galaxy note 9

Yep, I was so "satisfied" with my Note 9 that I listed on eBay a few months later. Can't stand how they start to get sluggish with the time. They really really do age terribly.

 

[ian87w]

Imagine if there wasn’t a pandemic the numbers would be even higher.
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Samsung perfected OLED production years ago. It’s not just their flagships they use OLED panels in, they use them in their mid range and budget phones. Combined Samsung sell more phones than Apple, albeit most of them cheaper. Samsung have had the capacity to make OLED panels years ago. Samsung are making OLED displays for pretty much the whole industry. Apple isn’t their only customer.

Apple have a road map and they very rarely deviate from it even if the technology is ready. They could have used OLED displays at least a year or two earlier but didn’t as it wasn’t what they had planned for.

Agree. Plus, imo Apple tends to make sure a component can be mass produced enough in volume with their standard of quality before putting it in their main product line, especially the iPhone. It reminds me of that sapphire screen that they were working on, but they dropped it since the volume and quality control just didn't work.

 

[The Game 161]

So what’s the guess this time next year?

iPhone 12
iPhone 12 max
iPhone 11
iPhone SE

 

[I7guy]

How do they know how many iPhones or others were sold?

Who's providing them with that information? Is Apple revealing its sales to a 3rd party? Are our credit card companies telling them? Does Best Buy sell or pass along its sales data?

What are the inherent problems or sampling biases with the data? What portion of iPhone sales go through channels that they have no access to?

Why does MR report such data as GOSPEL without giving such information and without analyzing or telling us about the data's limitations?

Why do MR readers immediately accept the findings as TRUE and then debate its implications -- in the usual old fashion way of Android vs. iPhone?

Let's start raising questions FIRST about the validity of the data -- and insist on information about how the data is gathered! Then, we'll a basis for figuring out what's on.

Off my soap box -- can you tell I'm a mild-mannered data analyst by day; masked crime avenger at night?!

In the meantime, I'll go back to my iPhone 4 and my iPad Air--and await the Bat Signal!

I agree with you on the validity of the information. These companies have proprietary methods for estimating shipments/sales and sometimes are wildly off from one another. I think you are correct to question the numbers, but I gave up that battle and assume the data reflects a modicum of reality with a wide margin of error.

 

[thenahon]

No iphone has 5.4", not even "your iphone XS" so stop with the lies and miss informations
The rumour is that an iphone 12 will have 5.4" and thats it, maybe you had an samsung with 5.4"

Indeed, I mistakenly put 5.4 and meant 5.8". Still, I prefer the 5.8 over the 6.1.

 

[cyberslammer]

Now we know where all that government stimulus money was spent.

 

[SidricTheViking]

Wait, what, you have it listed in your signature.

But it’s an iPhone 11 Pro Max, not an iPhone 11 - very different beasts! (I have the 11 myself, trust me!)

 

[Zdigital2015]

What’s Orwellian is the fact that 90% of smartphones run Android and 90% of PCs run Windows. That right there makes it a very boring tech world. Android and Windows fans (apparently the majority here on MacRumors) call Apple users cultists and lemmings. The real cultists and lemmings are the ones who use whatever everybody else is using. A hive mentality if you think about it, where the individual is subsumed into the collective. So Apple is really the only silver lining in an otherwise drab and boring tech world after all.

And a whole new revival of memes with Bill Gates dressed as a Borg has just been relaunched! Now someone just has to a Photoshop Sergey Brin and Larry Page and/or Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella along with them to complete the whole picture.

 

[windowsblowsass]

Agreed, well mostly, there are some superb devices out there that can run rings round an iPhone. But when you put Android on them, they all then tend to blend together.

Define run rings around because any a13 model smokes any android in every benchmark.

 

[The Game 161]

Define run rings around because any a13 model smokes any android in every benchmark.

Well yeah I would say the chip and the user experience is far more important than extra features which is what I’m guessing he means.

End of the day all it is comparing spec sheets not real world performance and lets face it that side of things is where apple runs cycles around everybody else. Most people all use their phones the same way for the most part.