Q1 Stories October 27, 2015
During a call with investors for its Q4 2015 earnings report today, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company saw its highest rate ever of Android switchers last quarter with a record 30% of new iPhone buyers coming from the rival platform. expand full story
Q1 Stories May 6, 2015
New data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows that smartphone users ditching Android devices in recent months helped drive iOS growth across the EU. The data tracked the EU’s biggest markets in 1Q15— Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain— and shows iOS grew 1.8 percentage points from last year to 20.3% market share this year. That includes around 32.4% of new Apple customers switching from an Android device, according to the report, while Android lost 3.1 percentage points during the quarter: expand full story
Q1 Stories January 9, 2015
Apple is preparing to expand its new Apple Pay payments service internationally with at least the Canadian launch currently scheduled for early 2015, according to sources close to the situation. expand full story
Q1 Stories May 1, 2014
Research firm IDC is out today with new data on the state of the tablet and 2-in-1 market in the first quarter of 2014. As you might expect after Apple’s most recent earnings report, Q1 unit shipments of iPad were down by 3 million from 19.5 million to 16.4 million between 2013 and 2014. For its part, Apple attributes its Q1 2013 iPad sales as inflated due to demand for iPad mini in Q4 2012 being fulfilled in the following quarter when supply was less constrained.
That may be, but the iPad also saw a drop in tablet market share between the first quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014. According to IDC’s data, Apple dropped from 40.2% market share in Q1 2013 to 32.5% market share in Q1 2014 while Samsung saw unit shipments increase as well as marketshare. Despite Samsung’s gains, though, Apple still dominates the tablet market more than any other one company leading Samsung by 10 percentage points in market share. expand full story
Q1 Stories January 27, 2014
During today’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that the iPhone 5c was the most popular choice among new iPhone users. However, the colorful new lower-end device did not meet the company’s expectations in sales. Despite the fact that iPhone 5s sales came in above Apple’s target, the iPhone category overall significantly missed analysts’ projected sales mark of 55 million units.
It’s likely that Apple misjudged the low-end smartphone market here, believing that users would jump at the chance for a “new” iPhone at a lower price than usual. Smartphone shoppers don’t seem to be taking the bait, instead opting for the more expensive, more “premium” 5s or going elsewhere. It’s hard to say they’re making the wrong call, considering that the iPhone 5c is actually much closer in specs to the previous generation than it is to the latest model, which seems to be more than worth its $100 premium.
Apple Q1 2014: iPod sales decreased by more than half since last year
You might have noticed that the main text in Apple’s press release today for its Q1 2014 results didn’t mention device sales for the iPod alongside iPhones, iPads, and Macs. That might because it’s the only product line that has experienced a huge decrease in sales over the last year, which isn’t helped by the fact Apple hasn’t updated the products in over a year apart from a minor refresh. It does, however, still have to disclose units sold in its unaudited summary data that accompanies the press release. To be precise, Apple’s results show it only sold a little over 6 million iPods during the holiday quarter. That’s a decrease of 55% year over year for revenue and 52% for units when looking at the 12.7 million it sold in Q1 2013. That’s also the biggest year over year drop ever for the iPod, which fell from 15.4m units in Q1 12 to 12.7m in Q1 13 before being cut in half this year. The iPhone, iPad, and Mac lineups, on the other hand, all experienced growth during the quarter.
During the conference call, Cook noted that they “have known for some time that iPod is a declining business” and that it would impact the overall results and guidance.
It’s not the first time Apple decided to leave out mentioning its iPod sales. It actually hasn’t done so since the year ago quarter when it announced the 12.7 million units sold for Q1 2013. Either way, the numbers will certainly have analysts questioning the future of Apple’s iPod line in the months to come. Apple announced back in May that it had sold 100 million iPod touch units since the device launched in 2007, but Apple has been selling less and less iPods each year.
