The average life of an iPhone is 4 years, up from years past. This figure could lead to a decrease in Apple’s revenues
The very long lines of Apple fans waiting for the opening of the bitten apple stores to buy the latest iPhone model could become a thing of the past: Apple is selling fewer and fewer iPhones, and it doesn’t seem to be a trend that will be reversed anytime soon. According to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, in fact, the average life of an iPhone has risen to 4 years.
In 2016, the average life of an iPhone was 2 years, while in 2018 it was 3 years. That means, according to Sacconaghi’s estimates, that in 2019 only 16% of iPhone users will scrap their old smartphone to buy a new Apple phone model. And for Apple, this could be a big problem. According to Sacconaghi, moreover, users are changing iPhones less and less often because of Apple’s new battery replacement program (and costs), changes in mobile carriers’ policies, and ever-higher smartphone prices.
How many iPhones are there in the world
Apple CEO Tim Cook himself basically confirmed Sacconaghi’s data and estimates as early as a month ago: “Our customers are keeping their iPhones a little bit longer than in the past. If we combine that with some macroeconomic facts in emerging markets, the result is a 15% drop in profits from iPhone sales, compared to last year.” In order to avoid that the sales data of iPhones, iconic and most representative product for the Cupertino company, affect Apple’s stock price, the manufacturer has stopped communicating the quarterly sales data limiting itself to confirm a much more generic data on the total number of iPhones circulating in the world. The latest data on the matter tells us that there are now 900 million iPhones in the world.
The hope, for Apple, is that sales will return to the top after the presentation of the new iPhone XI scheduled for September 2019. In the meantime, however, sales of the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max aren’t doing as well as Apple expected, and no one estimates they’ll get much better, unless Cupertino decides to cut the price of the iPhone. Which is unlikely at the moment. Even if the iPhone 2019 were to be a success, in any case, Apple’s new smartphone could only lift iPhone sales in the last quarter of 2019, the Christmas quarter. That’s why no one today believes that the negative trend in iPhone sales can be reversed later this year.