Apple is confident the iPhone will bounce back from its current slump in demand, but new forecasts suggest shipments will get worse before they get better. Researchers don’t expect growth to return until 2017 when Apple introduces bigger upgrades.
While pace has certainly slowed in recent years, worldwide smartphone shipments as a whole continue to grow. IDC expects the total figure to reach 1.48 billion this year before rising to 1.84 billion in 2020.
Unfortunately for Apple, shipments of the iPhone aren’t expected to follow that upward trend anytime this year.
“Apple is expected to face its first down year for iPhone in 2016 with shipments dropping from 232 million in 2015 to 227 million in 2016,” reports IDC. “The expected decline of 2% year over year is a significant change from past years’ growth.”
IDC adds that this “marks a pivotal moment” for Apple, but it is confident growth will return in 2017 and beyond, thanks in part to its early trade-in programs and the cost of entry-level iPhones like the iPhone SE.
Sales are also expected to see a significant boost in late 2017 after Apple launches the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, which are expected to bring faster processors, improved cameras, and bags of storage.
The iPhone 7 Plus is also likely to deliver Apple’s first dual-lens camera system, 3GB of RAM, and a Smart Connector.
By 2020, IDC expects iPhone shipments to reach 267 million units. We’ll have to wait and see whether Apple’s rumored switch to a three-year cycle for major upgrades will have any kind of impact on that — if at all true.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
3 responses to “iPhone shipments will get worse before they get better”
Yawn. Someone do us all a favour and take Killian’s keyboard away.
Here is one reason to take Killian’s keyboard:
“Sales are also expected to see a significant boost in late 2017 after Apple launches the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus”
Late 2017 is one year after Apple launches the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. You could have said:
“Sales are also expected to see a significant boost in late 2017 after Apple launches the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s”
This would also be true.
Or did you mean to write something else?
Does anyone know what Apple’s maximum capacity for their production lines? That’s an area that needs to be addressed first. Apple still doesn’t roll out in all of the countries during the first roll out and now since Apple is currently updating 3 screen sizes yearly, but staggering their release dates. I think that Apple’s just spreading near the same number of units sold, but it’s just staggered differently. I was at an Apple Store today and asked about the 6SE and the store simply runs out of stock early in the day. I was there at around 4:30pm and they had basically run out of stock by then, so it’s possible that the 6SE sales for this quarter might push the unit sales up from what it would normally be had they not release the 4inch model. The numbers reported don’t include 6SE sales, so we’ll just have to see what THIS quarter has in store.