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Apple Will No Longer Reveal How Many iPhones, iPads, and Macs It Sells (theverge.com)
Yesterday, during the company's Q4 earnings call, Apple's chief financial officer Luca Maestri said the company will no longer report unit sales of its main hardware divisions, including iPhones, iPad, and Mac. "This is the same as protocols Apple already follows for its smaller devices, such as the Apple Watch, AirPods, and HomePod, which are bundled under the 'Other Products' category," The Verge reports. From the report: The announcement comes after iPhone unit sales percentage was unchanged year over year, despite a revenue bump of 29 percent. The decision to stop disclosing unit sales is because that figure is "not representative of underlying strength of our business," Maestri said. "A unit of sale is less relevant today than it was in our past," he says, adding that unit sales increase are still a clear part of Apple's goals. While unit sales may not accurately represent Apple's business performance, it's a figure that analysts and journalists have used to calculate a product's average selling price. For example, that number can provide insight into how well different iPhone models are selling, as newer iPhones like the XS, XS Max, and XR are priced higher than older models like the now-discontinued SE, 6S, and 6.
We are still making money in the short term by overcharging suckers, while losing market share, and also pushing iOS developers away from the Macs they required.
This is the problem with the short term thinking and incentive structures in western multi-nationals corporations, who only care about the next quarter or so. Which is typically done at the expense of long term business viability.
I guess that the point is that they were happy to report it when it made them look good and positively impacted the stock price. Now that their sales numbers are flattening out they are going to stop communicating this information to the shareholders and the rest of the market.
Seems a bit cuntish. But then we are talking about Apple, so...
A trillion dollar company, supported in vast majority by (essentially) a single product. Why wouldn't they try to obfuscate when basic facts start looking "iffy?"
Really, the whole iThing ecosystem came to be in 15 years, and it's a monoculture. It's a huge bet for it being sustainable. Heck, 15 years ago, GE was king of the hill and way more diversified, look where they are now.
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These are not the numbers you are looking for...
I'm wonder if this isn't a sign that sales are down?
e.g. Blizzard did the same thing with WoW when they peaked at 12 million subs and were hemorrhaging customers.
... it is.
There's a good reason to abandon bragging rights.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Smartphone sales have saturated in North America and Europe. Combine that with performance that far exceeds most user's needs so people are waiting longer to upgrade. Its nothing specific to Apple, all the manufacturers are seeing this. And we already saw this with computers, saturation, performance beyond need, upgrade timeframes lengthening, ...
Apple is not losing marketshare.
Apple is losing marketshare.
Now Apple is already down to 11% of the worldwide market and was passed by Huawei at 15%. Xiaomi is now only 2% behind Apple, coming up fast, and Oppo is 3% behind. Apple will soon be fourth or fifth by market share.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Apple was first, and it locked in a lot of older folks who had more disposable cash. Meanwhile, my employer bought me a mobile, and it was never an iPhone, so by the time I needed to buy my own, Android was pretty equivalent and MUCH less expensive, so I went with Android. As a huge plus, Android phones can sideload.
On the other hand, I was a super Mac fanboy . . . until its products provided less value--less bang for the buck--than the competition. I'm typing this on the second work/gaming laptop that I've purchased since my last MacBook purchase. Sure, it's Windows, and sure, some things about Windows are annoying, but how much would a MacBook with a fast GPU, expandable RAM, fast SSD, and huge second HDD cost? Oh, wait, you can't buy one, but something ALMOST equivalent is twice as much. Double. 2X. The operating system is not so fantastic, the Foxconn production lines not so much better for Apple than the Foxconn production lines for other manufacturers, to justify this kind of premium.
People know value . . . eventually. Apple used to be rather innovative, and their products, while much more expensive than the competition, were priced according to their value. Now Tim Cook is just wringing out the profit machine. There is no vision at Apple. Cook's a logistics guy, a Wall Street darling, but he's not a leader; he's just in charge. There's a huge difference.
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