iPhone demand won’t get better in a hurry

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iPhone-6-vs-iPhone-6s
Shipments will take another tumble this quarter.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

After this week’s disappointing earnings report — which saw Apple’s profits decline year-over-year for the first time since 2003 — many people are speculating on when they can expect to see the iPhone decline turn around.

The answer? Certainly not this quarter, according to a new report which suggests that iPhone shipments are likely to fall to around 40 million units (compared to 51.19 million units) in the next three month period.

This isn’t exactly unexpected, of course. The last time iPhone sales grew in Apple’s fiscal third quarter (or the second calendar quarter) it was back in 2011 and the iPhone 4 was the latest handset on the market. Since then, Q3 has been a weaker quarter than Q2 due to the fact that, with no new devices on the horizon, many customers are holding out for the new iPhone. It should also be pointed out that 40 million units is still a massive number by the measure of virtually every other OEM out there.

However, if the numbers are accurate they are below the 47.53 million iPhone sales seen in this quarter 2015 (presuming that sales and shipments turn out to be roughly equal, which they often do with Apple handsets). Things should turn around slightly later on in the year when the new iPhone 7 is announced, but given that Apple seems to be saving its most significant advances for the 2017-era iPhone update — rumored to be called the iPhone 8 — we may be in for a disappointing year for iPhone sales.

What, if anything, do you think Apple could do to stem the decline in iPhone sales? Leave your comments below.

Via: Digitimes

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