Mobile Phone Thread S2

[Nu-Eclipse]

Samsung usurps Apple as world's biggest phone seller post-pandemic as Chinese sales decline.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/15/apples-loses-mantle-as-worlds-biggest-phone-seller-to-samsung-as-china-sales-drop

[Neon Ignition]

Still obviously huge but

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/15/apple-iphone-shipments-sink-as-chinese-challengers-rise-in-q1-idc.html

iPhone suffers a 10% fall in sales during Q1 compared to last year

[CMcK]

Maybe better to wait for Apple to report its earnings and see if that is actually true?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Still obviously huge but

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/15/apple-iphone-shipments-sink-as-chinese-challengers-rise-in-q1-idc.html

iPhone suffers a 10% fall in sales during Q1 compared to last year

Assuming that this is true when Apple officially confirm it, that's chump change for them.

[wakka]

The IDC forecast is a pretty reliable source. I don't think there is any reason to disbelieve this. It might be a little off on the exact figures but the broad strokes are probably right and I think this is inevitable. I would expect that Apple's market share in China will continue to shrink as the CCP is putting a major emphasis on domestic use and international promotion of Chinese-made technology. It's called the Made In China 2025 programme.

Apple are also poorly positioned to compete in emerging markets since most of their handsets are expensive, and the ones that aren't (the SE) offer a very dated design and features compared to competitors.

My guess is that in the future they will retain an appreciable but diminished China marketshare and that they will need to offer better, cheaper devices to compete in LEDC. The SE is long overdue for an upgrade but it will be interesting to see how Apple tackles the challenge of marketing a new budget device without cannibalising sales of the high-margin Pro models in their core markets (US, Europe, Japan).

[wakka]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-21/apple-aapl-growth-opportunities-southeast-asia-and-africa-lower-end-iphone-lv9itkna

Mark Gurman (prob the best journo on the Apple beat) outlines similar thinking to my post above. The decline of China as a market for Apple is inevitable and they need to offer emerging economies better, cheaper devices to increase sales.

Gurman suggests that a new budget iPhone would only be officially sold in these markets, to help protect premium device sales in core markets. That makes sense as an idea I think.

[Nu-Eclipse]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsl...phone-lv9itkna

Mark Gurman (prob the best journo on the Apple beat) outlines similar thinking to my post above. The decline of China as a market for Apple is inevitable and they need to offer emerging economies better, cheaper devices to increase sales.

Gurman suggests that a new budget iPhone would only be officially sold in these markets, to help protect premium device sales in core markets. That makes sense as an idea I think.

Colour me sceptical.

The "Apple should make mid/lower-range hardware" argument has always been around. For a long time BITD, there were rumours about Apple gatecrashing the Netbook market of the late 2000s with a budget MacBook. It didn't happen and, given that Netbooks were absolutely trash (speaking as a former Samsung NC10 owner), they were right not to get in on that dubious action.

Honestly, I just think that the Apple brand has gone too far down the premium route to change course at this point and I doubt that minimal (by Apple standards) losses in a market that historically has never really warmed to their products will make them change course. If anything, I feel like it would only cause Apple further headache if they started catering to separate countries/markets with budget versions of iOS products and/or budget Macs because the main western userbase would inevitably clamour for the same and I think that's the last thing Apple want, even though I obviously understand why consumers would want that (I haven't owned a MacBook in over a decade - simply cannot justify the exorbitant prices for even an entry-level machine nowadays).

[wakka]

Yeah the netbook point is a good one (I had almost forgotten about those!). Although it’s interesting to consider that Apple is now selling M1 MacBook Airs for $699 exclusively at Walmart (they don’t even have them on their own website).

The real problem is not the 10% drop so much as the lack of obvious growth potential.

Upgrade cycles on iPhones and Macs, and especially iPads and Watches, are increasingly long. Their switch over to their new Mac architecture is done. The car is cancelled. Vision Pro will take 5 to 10 years at the bare minimum to take off, if it even ever does. The big services play is mostly stillborn - it’s a huge part of reported revenue but it’s an open secret that 99% of it is the 30% App Store rake, not TV+, News+, etc. And even that golden goose is under threat from the EU DMA and the DoJ suit.

I mean in a realistic world that should all be funky dory because they sell a **** ton of gear. But obviously capitalism demands more more more. So the question is where does it come from?

The LEDC smartphone market is one potential answer.

With all that said I don’t disagree with any of the points you make, either. It’s an interesting conundrum.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Yeah the netbook point is a good one (I had almost forgotten about those!). Although it’s interesting to consider that Apple is now selling M1 MacBook Airs for $699 exclusively at Walmart (they don’t even have them on their own website).

You'd be forgiven for forgetting about Netbooks. Mobile phones today completely outperform them without trying. Chromebooks might have gone the same way in recent times but the hardware and software on them has generally improved across the board (Chromebook Plus, touchscreen convertibles, increased Linux compatibility, Google potentially separating Chrome browser and Chrome OS, etc.) - it had to.

That Walmart deal for an M1 MacBook is certainly eye-opening but really it's an exception and not a rule where Apple tech is concerned. Even refurbs of past-gen Macs are bloody expensive now! The prices rarely go down significantly, if ever.

The real problem is not the 10% drop so much as the lack of obvious growth potential.

Upgrade cycles on iPhones and Macs, and especially iPads and Watches, are increasingly long. Their switch over to their new Mac architecture is done. The car is cancelled. Vision Pro will take 5 to 10 years at the bare minimum to take off, if it even ever does. The big services play is mostly stillborn - it’s a huge part of reported revenue but it’s an open secret that 99% of it is the 30% App Store rake, not TV+, News+, etc. And even that golden goose is under threat from the EU DMA and the DoJ suit.

I mean in a realistic world that should all be funky dory because they sell a **** ton of gear. But obviously capitalism demands more more more. So the question is where does it come from?

The LEDC smartphone market is one potential answer.

With all that said I don’t disagree with any of the points you make, either. It’s an interesting conundrum.

I think you raise an excellent point in that it's clear that the EU DMA and US DoJ coming after them is giving them a sh1t-fit about how to protect their future earnings from their product base, especially as consumer electronic hardware is very much in an iterative state that isn't pushing the needle anymore - Apple silicon is still impressive in both Mac and iOS hardware but the performance improvement margins year-on-year are clearly decreasing.

[wakka]

That Walmart deal for an M1 MacBook is certainly eye-opening but really it's an exception and not a rule where Apple tech is concerned. Even refurbs of past-gen Macs are bloody expensive now! The prices rarely go down significantly, if ever.

Yeah I still remember the nasty post-Brexit price hike in 2016, when Macs suddenly went up by 50% overnight. Although that was mostly just because we decided to seppuku our own country and our currency unsurprisingly bottomed out as a result.

I think you raise an excellent point in that it's clear that the EU DMA and US DoJ coming after them is giving them a sh1t-fit about how to protect their future earnings from their product base, especially as consumer electronic hardware is very much in an iterative state that isn't pushing the needle anymore - Apple silicon is still impressive in both Mac and iOS hardware but the performance improvement margins year-on-year are clearly decreasing.

Yep, the year-on-year increases on Mac are lower than the Intel era even - 15% YoY performance boosts.

I honestly think they are kind of victims of their own success on the Mac. The M series chips ****ing rocked since day one. But it kind of means you have no reason to upgrade. I have a day one MacBook Pro M1 Pro and the idea to me that I would 'upgrade' to an M3 Pro is a non-starter. This machine is still ultra fast and I very much doubt I would see any practical day to day improvement with the newer model. I probably won't buy a new one till the M8 or something.

With the iPhone, it's a similar story - although that's a more industry-wide malaise, since phones in general have reached this point where they are all just really really good at this point and there's no real reason to upgrade more than once every ~5 years.

[charlesr]

With the price drop of the Pixel 7 range, I've gone for a 7a. A tiny bit bigger than my 5. Noticeably quicker and obviously new battery. Main thing is that the USB port works. I was having to charge wirelessly which was a pain in the car.

[Brad]

I can't see me using anything other than Motorola edge ultra phones going forward. Unless Motorola stop making them.

[Nu-Eclipse]

With the price drop of the Pixel 7 range, I've gone for a 7a. A tiny bit bigger than my 5. Noticeably quicker and obviously new battery. Main thing is that the USB port works. I was having to charge wirelessly which was a pain in the car.

Decent-ish length of software support from Google for it, albeit not the 7 years of support that the Pixel 8 series devices have gotten.

Android Update support: May 2026 (you should get Android 17 at the most).

Software security support: May 2028.