Neil Hughes
Ahead of typical seasonal trends, where iPhone sales traditionally cool off after the holidays, supply chain reports have begun projecting doom and gloom for Apple's flagship iPhone X, prompting analysts to cut estimates.
The hand wringing over iPhone X sales began when hit-or-miss Taiwanese industry publication the Economic Daily News cited supply chain sources as saying Apple trimmed iPhone X orders next quarter from 50 million units to 30 million. Shares of Apple suppliers subsequently fell as analysts trimmed their estimates, Bloomberg noted in a report.
Apple officials have long warned against reading too much into supply chain speculation, as the company's large and complex series of suppliers make it difficult to pinpoint specific trends.
Similar concerns already cropped up in the fall, when the iPhone 8 launched weeks ahead of the iPhone X. Market watchers pondered who would buy Apple's mid-range handset when a premium flagship model was coming shortly thereafter.
As it turned out, the iPhone 8 outperformed its predecessor, the iPhone 7. iPhone sales during the launch quarter grew to 46.7 million, driven by the debuts of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
Apple does not break down iPhone sales by model, so without attempting to decipher average selling price data, it's impossible to know exactly which handset is most popular at any given time. However, the $999-and-up pricing of the iPhone X are predicted by more bullish analysts to help drive iPhone ASP to a record high of $740.
If that prediction proves true, it would blow away the $695 ASP achieved in the holiday 2016 quarter — the first full frame of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus sales.
Sales of the iPhone X kicked off in early November, with availability limited at launch but gradually increasing. While the December quarter will represent the launch of the iPhone X, the proceeding March frame will actually be the first full quarter of iPhone X sales.
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40 Comments
Lol. Same song, verse 2. Or 200...
I think we are seeing this same cycle with every iPhone model: Apple introduces new phone, analysts claim supply too little to meet demand and the sales are weak, Apple then announces huge iPhone sales, analysts then claim Apple cuts orders, then Apple announces huge iPhone sales. Add stock volatility in the mix due to Wall Street paying attention to analysts.
Even the AppleInsider is calling out the nonsense in this article, it does play in the games throughout the without calling out the historical nonsense. Maybe AppleInsider could be much proactive in 2018 to not push the nonsense which calling out the analysts and bloggers who have been consistently found to push false news every quarter.
Here we go again.
the funny part of the analyst report was that there was 50% less mentions on Weibo about the X than the 6.....
"There were only 4.97 million Weibo posts mentioning the iPhone X so far in December compared to over 11 million for the iPhone 6 in the equivalent period in 2014, the analysis showed."
another made up stat the fit their narrative