Kuo: iPhone 14 Plus Pre-Orders Worse Than iPhone 13 Mini, Product Strategy 'Fails'

[Bawstun]

Never really understood this line either. I would make sense if they stopped selling last years model, but since they keep selling them I don't really see the point....

The whole iPhone lineup is getting so confusing IMO with this pro/non pro bs. Just have one model in different sizes an be done with it. Thank you bye...

also... Just make a mini pro and I'm sure that will sell like hot cakes...

The names really need an overhaul - it’s too confusing if you’re not in the ecosystem. I *am* and I’m still confused about all the models. iPhone 14. iPhone 14 Plus. iPhone Pro. iPhone Pro Max (perhaps the dumbest name they’ve ever gone with).

It’s a really dumb naming scheme and there’s no way to easily tell from a glance which iPhone model you want.

 

[Radeon85]

Not only have the prices increased by quite a large amount especially in Europe I really don't know why Apple even bothers making the regular iPhone 14 models, for a start it's pretty much an iPhone 13 Pro with a name change and the pro versions are only a small amount more.

Why waste time and money producing an an inferior phone with a worse camera, an older chipset and older type screen for what, about a $200 difference. Apple, just scrap the damn iPhone 14 base models, keep the pros, remove the pro name and lower them by $100. Hell will freeze over first though as Apple loves their insane profit margins.

Apple just has too many iPhones selling at the same time now, it's just ridiculous as the prices between each model is just tiny. It's getting to the point where it was before Jobs, way too many unnecessary product lines.

You have the,

iPhone SE (64GB, 128GB 256GB)
iPhone 12 (64GB, 128GB 256GB)
iPhone 13 Mini (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 13 (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 14 (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 14 Plus (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 14 Pro (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB)
iPhone 14 Pro Max (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB)

Not to mention all the colour choices of each model. And for the pros, 128GB shouldn't even be an option.

 

[Spock]

I think it’s the fact that the iPhone Pro shows a new design that will eventually become the iPhone standard. With the iPhone 14 so similar to the 13, why not just wait until the new design makes the rest of the lineup to upgrade from the 13?

 

[Hicksmat1976]

the more people purchase the new models the less likely Apple is to innovate. Apple can get away with being lazy because we enable them to do so.

 

[unsynaps]

Maybe because the 14's are a horrible upgrade if you have a 13?

Hell the watch is the same way.

Never been a easier choice to stick with the same phone/watch for at least 2 years.

 

[ct2k7]

Preorders usually come from the big fans like us, who typically would go for the high-end models (the Pro's). Once they become more widely available, I think it will see a push of the standard models, as people just do walk-ins and would prefer the cheaper big phone over the other one.

Kuo explained that the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have seen "neutral" and "good" pre-order results compared to the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max

 

[Bawstun]

A strong dollar has a big effect — it is not an excuse — the dollar/euro had not been at parity in 20 years. Apple or any company doesn’t control the value any currency.

Has this been the only price increase you’ve seen? Practically everything is going up. Don’t be quick to claim that greed is the reason behind all of it.

What are Apple’s margins, and how much revenue in pure profit did they record last quarter?

It is greed, nothing more. Companies have churned out record profits over the entire pandemic, record growth not seen in decades, but they’ll turn around and say they can’t afford living wages or humane benefits. It’s got to go.

 

[Turribeach]

1.14 to 1.02 is 10% down, not 25%.

Regardless of the reason, our price hike pays for your price freeze.

And it will bite Apple hard.

Don't know where you get your numbers from but on XE.com 31 Dec 2021 EUR => USD closed 1.23 and Sept 2022 it went below 1 at 0.99 so that's a .24 difference right there. Apple has to also factor the future exchange rate in the price and the trend is for the EUR to keep falling...

 

[CheffyDude]

Maybe..I HOPE..that Apple is finally being called out on their "Life Changing" and "Industry Leading" marketing bullcrap. For instance, they advertise the iPhone 14 Pro as having a "48 Megapixel" camera. Sure, that's great, except it's quad pixel binning, which means it's really a 12 mega pixel l camera. You won't see a difference. They made a huge deal out of something they called "New" and "exciting" features that Android and Samsung's has had for years. Apple's been trying to pull the wool over our eyes for years and its finally catching up to them.

 

[assb10yr]

As if this guy Kuonknows anything. He’s just trying to stay relevan. Most of the stuff he says is complete 🐴 💩

 

[wabisabizo]

I mean come on, there is no justification to buy iPhone 14/14 Plus. Being an iPhone user for so long, there’s no point buying a reskinned iPhone 13. Just get an iPhone 13 or 14 Pro/Pro Max. Apple did the most useless update to iPhone 14, they need a good kick to their iPhone revenues tbh to realize what people need/want.

 

[contacos]

Not only have the prices increased by quite a large amount especially in Europe I really don't know why Apple even bothers making the regular iPhone 14 models, for a start it's pretty much an iPhone 13 Pro with a name change and the pro versions are only a small amount more.

Why waste time and money producing an an inferior phone with worse a camera, an older chipset and older type screen for what, about a $200 difference. Apple, just scrap the damn iPhone 14 base models, keep the pros, remove the pro name and lower them by $100. Hell will freeze over first though as Apple loves their insane profit margins.

Apple just has too many iPhones selling at the same time now, it's just ridiculous as the prices between each model is just tiny. It's getting to the point where it was before Jobs, way too many unnecessary product lines.

You have the,

iPhone SE (64GB, 128GB 256GB)
iPhone 12 (64GB, 128GB 256GB)
iPhone 13 Mini (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 13 (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 14 (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 14 Plus (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)
iPhone 14 Pro (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB)
iPhone 14 Pro Max (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB)

Not to mention all the colour choices of each model. And for the pros, 128GB shouldn't even be an option.

I have been saying all along that the iPhone 14 only exists to keep the high price point of the "Pro" models and for upselling purposes. You can't have the iPhone 13 on a discount and the next (new) iPhone start at 400 EUR higher, you need something "in between" and lets be honest, they are not going to drop the price of the Pro models.

I miss those days when you could either buy last years model (on a discount) or the current model taking over previous years price

 

[IsaacM]

It's way too similar to iPhone 12 and 13 but I think the Max will be a good long term seller. We will see.

 

[TracerAnalog]

In my place, iPhone 14 is 200 EUR more expensive than iPhone 13, with a very small set of new features. That's hard to justify.

Yeah, don’t forget the inflation, and the exchange rate of the dollar!! That price hike is NOT on Apple. But indeed, why buy a 14 when the 13 Pro is the same price?

 

[CarAnalogy]

This whole presentation just seemed hollow.

For the first time, to me, it felt like they were trying to sell this stuff rather than sharing something that they genuinely find exciting.

Maybe I was soured by the way they presented the removal of the SIM slot.

And then Tim with his whole “buy your mom an iPhone” comment.

More and more ads for their services, less and less focus on what users really want.

No more focus on quality with macOS, just making it more like an iPad.

Holding back the only new iPad feature to coerce people to buy one of the less than one year old models.

Apple is really losing me lately.

 

[robvalentine]

I'm guessing the lack of sim tray in the US is also a factor? You can almost justify the removal of the headphone jack, but sim tray? I guess the US carriers want their roaming charges.

 

[Kabeyun]

there is a "growing" chance that it will cut orders of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, which currently account for around 45 percent of the entire lineup's shipments.

That doesn’t sound so terrible given that together the models are 50 percent of the lineup.

 

[Turribeach]

What are Apple’s margins, and how much revenue in pure profit did they record last quarter?

It is greed, nothing more. Companies have churned out record profits over the entire pandemic, record growth not seen in decades, but they’ll turn around and say they can’t afford living wages or humane benefits. It’s got to go.

You buy Apple products but hate capitalism? It's simple: offer and demand, market value. The market is willing to pay for it, so Apple has priced it accordingly. Maybe you can't afford it, but many people can. And companies are there to make money for their stock holders, so they have a fiduciary responsability to make as much as they can. If it was your own company would you lower prices to give something back? Or would you sell your product at max profit? And it's not their fault people used more their products/services in the pandemic...

 

[bookcase]

I've never gone for the Pro models until this year -- the differences between the 14 and 14 Pro were too large to justify sticking with the non-Pro model. In the past, they've been only marginally different. So the news that demand might be lower isn't really surprising.

 

[TimmKook]

This whole presentation just seemed hollow.

For the first time, to me, it felt like they were trying to sell this stuff rather than sharing something that they genuinely find exciting.

Maybe I was soured by the way they presented the removal of the SIM slot.

And then Tim with his whole “buy your mom an iPhone” comment.

More and more ads for their services, less and less focus on what users really want.

Apple is really losing me lately.

GOOD MORNING!

I am sad to hear you feel that way. Our iPhone 14 preorder sales have been dismal. That's why I had to say "buy your mom an iPhone" because we really need more sales on these things. We made the 13 series too good and couldn't think of anything else to put in these 14s

Hopefully if your mother doesn't have an iPhone, she can preorder an iPhone 14 to help our sales.

 

[azentropy]

Too early and too many factors to consider. I do expect the Plus to have a higher return/exchange rate though. People always think bigger is better and many will opt for the Plus and then realize it really is too big or do end up liking it and then thinking for $200 more to get the Pro Max instead.

 

[cardfan]

Apple expected most sales to be pro this year. Probably has a dynamic island to thank for it. It’s a good problem to have.

 

[Turribeach]

I'm guessing the lack of sim tray in the US is also a factor? You can almost justify the removal of the headphone jack, but sim tray? I guess the US carriers want their roaming charges.

It has been pointed out already that a lot NVMOs sell e-sim plans all over the world. This change will force the bigger carriers in each country to support e-sim too since travellers will fall back to NVMOs which provide e-sims. e-sims will enhance competition in most countries since you don't need a store to sell your SIMs.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Kuo has no hard facts to back up his claims — he is only looking at shipping times. There could be different factors — consumers have shifted their purchases to the Pro line, and/or production could be running better than last year — he doesn’t know any of this.

Also, why does anyone act like everyone upgrades every year? There are plenty of people that didn’t upgrade last year that might this year. To say that the 14 isn’t much different than the 13 is missing the point — it may be different enough for the 12 or older user.

 

[User 6502]

Happy to have contributed to this failure by non upgrading my iPhone 13. iPhone 14 is a pathetic joke. Once it runs out I’ll leave the upgrade program and only upgrade my iPhone when apple actually introduces changes.