iPhone Christmas sales hit by 15% over production problems & weak demand

The latest smartphone sales estimates from analyst firm IDC says the December 2022 quarter saw the largest-ever decline, with Apple selling around 12 million fewer iPhones than in same period in 2021.

UBS recently forecast that Apple will have sold 79 million iPhones in what will be the company's Q1 2023 results, and that this is only just under the 80 million that, on average, the rest of the market expects. Now IDC reports that the figure is probably 72.3 million, which is below even the "street low" prediction of 74 million.

For the same period last year, iPhone sales were 85 million, so the new figures represent at 14.9% drop. That's still better than the whole worldwide smartphone market, which in total saw shipments drop 18.3%, just over 300 million devices int he quarter.

"We have never [before] seen shipments in the holiday quarter come in lower than the previous quarter," wrote IDC research director Nabila Popal. "However, weakened demand and high inventory caused vendors to cut back drastically on shipments."

Source: IDC

"Heavy sales and promotions during the quarter helped deplete existing inventory rather than drive shipment growth," continued Popal. "Even Apple, which thus far was seemingly immune, suffered a setback in its supply chain with unforeseen lockdowns at its key factories in China."

IDC believes that the figures reflect consumer concern over rising inflation, which may "push out any possible recovery to the very end of 2023."

It's not clear where IDC sources its data. Apple has not reported iPhone sales volumes in many years.

13 Comments

InspiredCode 405 comments · 8 Years

About 1 year ago

On the plus side, this is a good year to buy in for long term investment. The externalities that resulted in this will resolve by next year.

foregoneconclusion 2857 comments · 12 Years

Inflation isn't rising in the United States. It's been on a downward trajectory for months. It certainly wasn't rising in December.

danox 3442 comments · 11 Years

How would they know how many iPhones Apple shipped?Did Apple also tell them how many iPhones were actually sold this quarter? Did Tim send them a memo?

cropr 1143 comments · 11 Years

danox said:

How would they know how many iPhones Apple shipped?Did Apple also tell them how many iPhones were actually sold this quarter? Did Tim send them a memo?

There are a lot of indicators for IDC to estimate the volume even if Apple is not disclosing any figures:
I once saw a model (not from IDC for smartphones) how these things are calculated. It is a very complex prediction software, taking into account regional and global economic figures, suppliers figures, resellers figures, ....
To give you an indication. If one reseller says he has sold 10% less than the same quarter last year, one could argue that this reseller did not do a great job. But if 10 resellers all drop on average 10% compared to the same quarter last year, this is a trend that you cannot assign to coincidence or bad sales performance
By correlating all the data, you get a very good approximation of the actual sales figures Apple did, but of course not guaranteed to be 100% correct.

charlesn 1193 comments · 11 Years

IDC is notorious for its consistently negative and wrong predictions about Apple, so it's hardly a surprise that their prediction is below that of even the most dire on Wall Street. I would say take their predictions with a grain of salt, but that would be insulting to the grain of salt.