Apple Blames Consumers For Weak iPhone Sales

Things are not so great for Apple right now. While the company is still remaining high on the chart of top smartphone makers, iPhone sales have been declining steadily.

And what is worth mentioning is that in his recent letter to the company's investors, Apple CEO, Tim Cook, blamed its bad record on its users base's longer upgrading cycles. Since consumers decide to stick with their older phones, the number of new iPhones being sold is not enough. 

This is precisely the case in China, where the Cupertino giant is being surpassed by local Android phone makers like Xiaomi and Huawei.

Tim also said that its consumers have taken advantage of the dramatically lowered battery replacement price to replace their old phones' batteries, which is the leading cause of its poor sales performance.

The tech giant’s CEO said:

Tim Cook further mentioned that the company could miss the iPhone revenues estimation by $9 billion for the first quarter.

However, according to economic analysts, the real reason for the decline is the cost of Apple's products. There is an undeniable fact that the price of iPhone is continuously increasing from one generation to another with almost no changes to the products. The iPhone X, Xs, Xs Max, for example, look almost identical but the newer phones are significantly more expensive than, the older ones. So it comes as no surprise that customers are frustrated with the continual increase in price.

Apple's iPhone lineup

India is still somewhat a new and still developing market. Xiaomi understood this as they ventured in with products at reasonable prices. They have also been updating their devices, but none of the smartphone manufacturers except for Apple imposes an amount of over Rs 1 lakh for its product. And that is an absolutely wrong strategy for a market that is into using Android. 

Perhaps Apple needs to question itself rather than blaming its consumers. After all, even some of the brand's enthusiasts admit that the new iPhones come at absurd prices.