Apple iPhone may soon be renovated since analysts shows that first-time iPhone buyers are becoming less and less
Toni Sacconaghi Sanford Bernstein analyst’s latest research around Apple iPhone reveals some rather worrying numbers for the big metallic Apple. According to the research the actual number of firt-time iPhone buyers is now shrinking.
If we take the stats year by year 62% of iPhone users last year were first-time new buyers. Now 54% are first-time buyers, which equals to a total of 13% drop in the net new iPhone buyers (not only first-time buyers here included) and it certainly raises a concern.
Furthermore the analyst is even more worried that without expected deal with China Mobile or the introduction of really, really low-priced model for developing countries soon Apple with the Apple iPhone may find itself in trouble.
The thing is that there are not enough first time Apple iPhone buyers left for sales to meet consensus forecasts for 2014 and 2015 sales of the device.
Even though we are now almost certainly expecting a deal with the biggest carrier in China – China Mobile and there are now suggestions that Apple iPhone 5S is being tested for the China Mobile TD-LTE pipeline and the smartphone itself has been approved by China’s equivalent version of the FCC. China Mobile is waiting for approval from China’s regulators to turn on its 4G LTE network.
For now the analysis, however, precise it may be it is not so threatening since the deal with China Mobile is good to go. Nevertheless, for the theoretic purposes to discover what may follow with the current trend set for shrinking first-time buyers of iPhones.
In this scenario Apple iPhone will drop to 37% of total buyers in 2014, and 28% in 2015. That means that by 2015, nearly 70% of those buying an iPhone will be replacing an older model. This inevitably will force Apple to really radically innovate the device so the users can have an incentive to change the old iPhone with a newer one. This may not be that bad for the users after all.
Source: Fortune
