Ming-Chi Kuo Says iPhone XR Demand Has Been Lower Than Expected, Slashes Shipment Estimates

[Icaras]

Decrease the price (and/or the size) and sales will increase.

And don't make us trade in a phone.

Agreed, but they probably couldn't have lowered the price without shrinking the size of the device, which I would have no disagreements whatsoever.

I would have much preferred a 5.5" XR for $650. If these estimates are true, then Apple f***ed up assuming the mass market would be ok paying higher prices for larger phones. Is the size of the regular iPad sitting between the iPad Pro 11" and 12.9"? No. The iPhone size lineup never made any sense to me.

As much as I love my XR and as much as I have reiterated that time and time again on this site (it really is for me one of the best iPhones I've ever owned. I just find the size a tad too big), I still think the product is oddly sized, oddly placed, and oddly priced.

Then again, maybe Apple's strategy all along for the XR was really just to upsell you to the Xs, which could also be considered a win or them. I guess we'll find out in the next earnings call.

 

[kazmac]

Very washed out? That's weird. I own X and compared it to XR and couldn't see much difference. X colours were littlebit deeper, For me XR had great screen.

Do you mean compared to some super punchy Android OLEDs? Then i can understand, those are not my cup of tee, i like balanced natural looking screen where nothing is Jumping out.

To my eyes the contrast was washed out. I’ve seen those android oled screens but never used one.

Glad the XR works for you.

 

[smulji]

Not only that but there’s something going on with the XS screens, it can’t just be PWM because many OLED phones use PWM and I don’t feel anything using them, but the XS I immediately feel strained and get a headache later.

"but the XS I immediately feel strained and get a headache later."

I would too if I spent so much on a smartphone, iPhone or otherwise

 

[wolfboy]

Honestly, I think a lot of is just bad marketing. It's a perception problem; the fact that it comes in all these colors and costs $750 makes people think it's a poor man's iPhone (aka iPhone 5C). Nobody wants a budget iPhone, but nobody wants to spend $1000+ on a phone either, so therefore, they'll just stick with what they have and not upgrade at all.

Apple's positioned it all wrong. If they had offered the XR in only black, white, and gold, and maybe just called it plainly "iPhone", people would view it more as a regular phone and the XS/Max as a premium phone (aka a Toyota and a Lexus). I also don't know why they insist on keep using these bright ass colors that the mass market doesn't like. Nobody outside of the online Apple communities wants to spend $800 on a yellow or orange phone.

 

[AtomicDusk]

I love my XR. I just traded in my 6S+ for it 4 days ago. Battery life is amazing, so it Face ID. I cannot get over how fast it is in the variety of angles and lighting it works in. My kids (5&2) absolutely love Animoji and Memoji. And yes it is snappier. Not to the extent that people said, it doesn't blow me away. But I didn't think my 6S+ was slow either. And to the people complaining about it having an LCD screen vs OLED, I went from LCD to LCD, and I'm not doing side by side comparisons. In an experience like mine there's no way to notice difference in the screen.

I do not like the buttonless UI, however. If I want to go to my home screen when unlocking, but I have an app open thats two swipes, which is more from a tactile prospective than 2 presses of the home button. I do not like the control center in the top right either. Also, the swipe bar to close apps/go to home screen should follow the physical orientation of the device not the locked orientation of the app. Sometimes in landscape it has a hard time recognizing the swipe, perhaps due to the case coming up along the edge, which isnt a problem at the bottom of the screen.

Despite those issues, I would not go back, at least, I don't think I would. I would like a physical home button on the side, like the sleep/wake button, say as far from the bottom as that is from the top.

 

[skitidetdu]

Apple does not have “budget” phones.

I know that...but people watching youtube's reviews for advice gets this statement over and over. So they believe it is the case.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

Because it's $250 less; multiply that by some number if you need to upgrade multiple phones and the money quickly adds up. The Xr is worlds better than my 7. It's a terrific phone. Yes, the Xs or Xs Max are better but $250+ is a significant savings.

You really think lcd will stay some more years, haha, come on ... every cheap android has oled
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Too late, it's already happening.

Android is google is evil
I just don’t buy any phone, just stay with iPhone 7.
I love the 4s only navigation is too slow

My next phone probably from a company which soon will start, not necessarily a smartphone, maybe something else

 

[hagr182]

I usually switch up my iPhones every two years but when I saw pricing for the XS and XS Max I decided to keep my 7 plus, which to this day runs great; plus other than face ID I really don´t see a reason to upgrade yet. Maybe if the next iPhone is cheaper then I´ll switch up, otherwise I´m keeping my 7 plus until it no longers works.

 

[nexusrule]

It’s a good wake-up call for Apple and reminds them that they can’t get away with price increases year after year. Consumers just won’t tolerate it and the smartphone market is saturated at the moment. There is very little that an iPhone Xs can do that an iPhone 7 can’t.
Apple will need to come out with some really innovative must have functions and a price decrease to stimulate sales next year.
I would give anything to be a fly on the wall at Apple boardroom meetings to hear what their reaction is to flagging sales

You wouldn't hear what you expect. Thinking that any company as big as Apple, with the level of data at their disposal are being taken by surprise is silly. The smartphone market and technology is now mature. This essentially means two things: growth can only slow down (there is a finite number of customers in the world) while the lifespan of the device will only increase (better technology and software).

What would a smart company do in this situation? Start selling its devices at an higher price obviously. And, it's not greed. This "smartphone prices are insane" conversation is going to wind down when people notice that they can keep their phone even 4 or 6 years. Everyone agrees, I think, that spending $1.000 every 4 or 6 years is better than spending $750 every 1 or 2 year, right? Just like everyone does with personal computers (and, really, any technology product, why people never learn from the past?).

The simple fact that Apple decided to stop saying how many device they sell should be enough for everyone to understand they have already foreseen what will happen in terms of sales. And lowering prices would not help in any way. People buy less phones because everyone has one already, and because the phones now last a lot longer, not for the price. Nobody that has a perfectly working smartphone will replace it, because it's dumb, it's dumb at 750 and it's dumb at 1000.

People on this forum don't want to accept the fact that they are not representative of the market, and they start coming up with all these silly theories, silly suggestions, that would just run any company into the ground. Lower the prices! Yes, and then sell almost the same number of phones because you can't just make demand up. Genius.

 

[Phone Junky]

It should be a lot better, the 6s is three years old.
Compare how much powerful is the worst computer you could buy today compared with the zx spectrum. Should we price it accirdingly with the performance increase?

In your original post that I quoted, you said, "The way apple has been increasing prices is just insane." My response is that the better hardware and three years newer XR is the same price as the older 6s plus sold for when it was released. That does not equate to "increasing prices".

 

[kemal]

The problem with the Pippin was it lacked Face ID.

Seriously, Apple should have found a way to have only A12 based phones for sale starting October 2018. The screen size and NAND set the price.

 

[I7guy]

Apple is tanking from lack of progression. Hopefully they don't just stand by and hope for the best - they need to take action and get new leadership in place to shake things up.

Their (apples) financials don’t align with this “opinion.”

 

[falainber]

Agreed, but they probably couldn't have lowered the price without shrinking the size of the device, which I would have no disagreements whatsoever.

I would have much preferred a 5.5" XR for $650. If these estimates are true, then Apple f***ed up assuming the mass market would be ok paying higher prices for larger phones. Is the size of the regular iPad sitting between the iPad Pro 11" and 12.9"? No. The iPhone size lineup never made any sense to me.

As much as I love my XR and as much as I have reiterated that time and time again on this site (it really is for me one of the best iPhones I've ever owned. I just find the size a tad too big), I still think the product is oddly sized, oddly placed, and oddly priced.

Then again, maybe Apple's strategy all along for the XR was really just to upsell you to the Xs, which could also be considered a win or them. I guess we'll find out in the next earnings call.

Of course they could. They are making tons of profits on all of their products (XR included). They just did not want to lower their profit margins. There are plenty of big phones that are sold at much lower prices.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

The price is not the only factor. Many people simply don't want to carry a flat-screen television in their front pocket.

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You know, I don't get that. I picked up the iPhone Xs and Xs Max and I don't see the big deal wrt their size. Comparing it to my Nexus 6 the Xs and Xs Max are not that big. I was able to comfortably hold each phone in one hand and operate it as well. I can't do that with my Nexus 6.

 

[I7guy]

If you compare the 6s plus with the XS max that’s certainly an increase in price. Maybe you think it’s not a valid comparison, but they are both the flagship phones of their year.

That’s correct it is not a valid comparison, imo. The max is value priced, which is not the same as “raising prices”. What do you think the case max 512 gb ought to sell for? Just curious.

Well let’s talk about the computers. The mac mini costs nearly twice as much as the previous generations. The macbook pro has also seen a price increase, as well as the macbook air, with the added inconvenience of the lack of useful ports.

Okay. Apple raised prices in their computer line but not the phone line.
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Of course they could. They are making tons of profits on all of their products (XR included). They just did not want to lower their profit margins. There are plenty of big phones that are sold at much lower prices.

And if price is your main concern or priority, one would automatically rule out an apple product.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Could Apple please make something "new" again that's smaller?

It doesn't have to be as small as the SE necessarily, but smaller than the X/XS please.

Not everyone wants the size or expense of the current new phones.

 

[now i see it]

Estimates down to 10 million sold per month. Definitely time to panic.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I’m not at all surprised as I know very few people who have bought an X series iPhone. I know it’s anecdotal to a degree but when you consider so many people rushed out and bought the iPhone 6 it’s rather telling. I don’t get the impression there’s as much interest as there used to be when a 3 year old iPhone does much the same thing and is still a cool looking device.

 

[Silver Idaten]

"but the XS I immediately feel strained and get a headache later."

I would too if I spent so much on a smartphone, iPhone or otherwise

But it’s not any smartphone, it’s just the XS. The XS I feel immediate eye strain, I don’t get that with any other smartphone - other iPhones, other OLED phones, it’s just the XS.

 

[Baymowe335]

Apple is tanking from lack of progression. Hopefully they don't just stand by and hope for the best - they need to take action and get new leadership in place to shake things up.

Do you even know anything about Apple’s financial results, or do you just watch the stock price?

Stocks go up and down for a lot of reasons. If you haven’t noticed, Apple and the other tech stocks, along with the entire market, have been crushed over 2 the last months or so.

Apple just put up the best year ever and the most profit of any company, ever at $60B.

They just grew revenue 20% y/y and eps 41% y/y.

The company has never sold more product for more money, ever and is doing better than ever.

Cook has done a fantastic job and he and the board were just given a huge vote of confidence on the overall strategy earlier this year. Shareholders can vote out these guys if they don’t like management. They don’t vote them out because they are doing a fantastic job. Look at the numbers.

You can’t just judge a company over the stock price movement of the last 8 weeks. It’s absurd. The whole market has been bad.

 

[iMEric984]

News flash. All cell phone sales are declining. Apple is doing just fine. Maybe this means people are buying the XS more. After all, that was the most popular last year with the X right??
Apple shot themselves in the foot speeding up older devices with iOS 12, and of course discounted battery replacements.
I’m sure they anticipated this all along.

 

[Hastings101]

Well hopefully he’s wrong. I know unit sales are supposedly less important than money earned blah blah, but there comes a point in a few years where if iOS loses too many users that the developers will start to go too.

Obviously we’re nowhere near that with Apple selling 200+ million devices, but Apple should think seriously before it starts aiming purely for profit without market share because it could turn ugly eventually. We all know it doesn’t take long for a tech giant to die out a la Blackberry, Palm, even Apple itself has experienced this before in the PC market.

 

[AirunJae]

It a pretty big admission for Apple to discount the iPhone on their main page. The sales must be disappointing.

It's not a discount, it's the same trade-in option they've had for the past couple years, just better advertised. I think Apple is aware of the pricing of the new models and don't want people to assume that they can't get a new phone.

 

[haydn!]

When I went to my local Apple Store, even the assistant referred to the XR as the XS’s “chubby ugly younger brother” and to fair she was right.

If it was the same size as an XS/X - I think it would have sold a little better.

 

[turbineseaplane]

even the assistant referred to the XR as the XS’s “chubby ugly younger brother”

Sounds like the XR could be the "American Cousin"

(I am American btw)