








Sources: CNET, The Wall Street Journal

Comments     Threshold


RE: Wow... This is real.
By RufusM on 1/14/2013 8:47:02 AM , Rating: 4
This waning demand seems like market saturation is happening. Many iPhone users I know aren't moving to trade in their iPhone 4 or 4S for the iPhone 5 because their current one is still good enough.

Phones are on the fast growth track much like PCs were a number of years ago where each new hardware generation was so much faster than the previous generation there were large gains to be made in performance.

Now, with PCs many people just don't see a need to upgrade their older equipment since the new ones are marginally faster for the things they are used for. I think iPhones are starting to hit that point of marginal returns for newer generations.

RE: Wow... This is real.
By menting on 1/14/2013 9:01:13 AM , Rating: 2
but for most die hard Apple fans, it's not about if it's fast enough, it's about having the newest Apple device. I don't own any Apple devices personally, but quite a few friends do, and they have to get the newest every time.

RE: Wow... This is real.
By DanNeely on 1/14/2013 9:32:26 AM , Rating: 4
Apples market share has grown far beyond the diehard fans; joe sixpack doesn't care about having the latest and greatest as long as his current devices still work fine.

RE: Wow... This is real.
By retrospooty on 1/14/2013 9:52:25 AM , Rating: 5
Yup... What we are dealing with is Zeitgeist. In 2007 the iPhone came out and it was easily better than anything else out. It was a market changer... But even 3 years later in 2010 Blackberry was still growing, because of its own Zeitgeist. It was clearly bested in form and function, but still growing it's sales. Remember the term "Crackberry"? It took 4 years for that to wane and the majority of people to realize that Blackberry was years behind iPhone and Android. Now people are starting to realize that the iPhone is behind. It will be able to coast for a few more years, but at some point Apple needs to step it up to catch up with what everyone else is doing.

RE: Wow... This is real.

RE: Wow... This is real.
By retrospooty on 1/14/2013 9:55:16 AM , Rating: 2
True,but there aren't enough of those people to keep growing. It's not that sales are going down, its just that the growth rate isn't sustaining. What surprises me is how long is lasted already.

RE: Wow... This is real.
By Colin1497 on 1/14/2013 1:01:51 PM , Rating: 2
This is spot on. The only people really worrying about the upgrade treadmill at this point are the people who buy them for image. I've thought about upgrading my wife's iPhone 4, which is eligible, but we just kind of decided "meh, we'll wait for the next one." Like PC's, the upgrade cycle is stretching out.

