Have we reached peak iPhone? Deciding not to share device sales figures certainly suggests Apple doesn’t think the numbers will keep rising each year. The official line is that sales figures are ‘less relevant today.’
One of the easiest ways to determe how popular a device is, requires simply looking at the sales figures. Look at them over multiple years and you can quickly spot growth or a decline in popularity. When the Xbox One didn’t sell very well compared to the competition, Microsoft stopped sharing sales figures. Now Apple is doing the same for the iPhone, iPad, and Macs.
Unlike Microsoft though, Apple doesn’t really have a problem shifting units for its very popular smartphones, tablets, and computers/laptops. As The Verge reports, the official reason given by Apple for choosing to stop sharing comes from the company’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri, who explained, «A unit of sale is less relevant today than it was in our past.»
Tim Cook explains it a different way, suggesting it’s not how many you sell, it’s the «value of what’s in the cart.» In other words, Apple no longer views units sold as a true measure of value, the value is how much revenue is generated by sales of devices combined with the additional revenue those devices generate when used by consumers. So we buy Apple products, but then every time we purchase an app Apple gets a cut, we may also buy Apple products, sign up for AppleCare+ etc.
While that is a valid argument for showing the true value of Apple’s devices, it doesn’t mean you have to stop sharing sales figures. Apple could simply share more, right? Instead, deciding to no longer discuss sales suggests that Apple thinks they aren’t going to keep growing. Have we reached peak iPhone? Perhaps, and no company wants the headline «iPhone sales are falling» the day after a new model roles out.
So while this decision may really be about the relevance of sales figures for devices, it surely has to be just as much about protecting Apple’s brands in markets that are becoming increasingly saturated with gadgets.
