It is said Apple will ship 80 million new iPhones in 2018, which means a 20% reduction at the same period last year.
According to the report, the number of components of the three new iPhones which are planned to launch in Q3 and Q4 is about 20% less than last year’s iPhoneX and iPhone8.
After years of rapid growth, consumer’s enthusiasm for the new version of the iconic smartphone may have already cooled down, resulting in not only a decline in the share price of Apple and its suppliers, and it is also a heavy pressure on the global stock market.
“This news needs to be viewed from Apple’s point of view. Last year, Apple may be too optimistic about the prospects of its new mobile phone, and obviously, there was an excess inventory in the first half of this year,” according to James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Equities. Therefore, the procurement plan for this quarter has been reduced, indicating that Apple is more practical.
In the fiscal year ending of September 30, Apple sold 217 million iPhones by the end of September 30, including its older models.
Some analysts believe that Apple’s mobile phone sales this year will be lower than the previous year, because the sluggish of global demand, and the share with global market of competitors like Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc. Those competitors have shared the marketplace with it.
According to several media reports, Apple’s top analyst King-Chi Kuo, an analyst at KGI Securities, said that Apple may reduce the price of the new iPhone by $300 later this year.
However, D.A. Davidson & Co analyst Thomas Ford said: “I am not too worried about … the reason for the decline in supply. Usually Apple does enough to keep the ball moving forward.”
So far the iPhone is still considered as the largest revenue-generating product. However, in order to offset the impact of the weak smartphone market, Apple’s service is always another efficient way to make it work.
Apple Music, App Store and iCloud, had a revenue of $9.1 billion in the second quarter. In FY 2017, the iPhone accounted for 62% of the company’s total revenue, while services accounted for 13%.
In fact, compared with iPhone6, the gross profit of an iPhoneX is about 160% of that of the iPhone6, which means that once the iPhoneX shipments in the two quarters reach 65% of the iPhone6 at that time, Apple’s mobile phone profits will surpass the historical peak perfectly.
