When Apple investors consider the iPhone’s presence in China, she says they should consider how many people own and use iPhones at any given time. By that measure, Morgan Stanley estimates Apple has gained 4 percent market share in 2017 and iPhones currently represent 19.5 percent of active smartphones in China. Not only is Apple gaining this important market share, it is out gaining all of the four largest domestic Chinese smartphone brands as well.
Huberty says Apple’s impressive China growth will soon start to accelerate further as the Chinese user base begins generating more Apple Services revenue as well.
Here we’re keeping the phones longer as well. My family has Galaxy S8, iPhone 8 and iPhone 7. The iPhone 7 might be replaced with an X soon. But we plan to use both the S8 and iPhone 8 for more than 2 years.
The only good thing about being old is that I don’t have to worry about dying young.
I now have the life expectancy of a cat. Might as well eat whatever I like…
That’s the long term bear case for Apple. iPhone is competing more and more with older iPhones as the upgrade cycle drags longer and longer. There really aren’t many reasons to upgrade faster than 3 years for average users. Soon it will be 4 years and 5 years. How often do people upgrade their PC’s nowadays?
That’s why services revenue is critical. It creates revenue after the sale of the phone. That way Apple is getting revenue every year even if people take longer to upgrade their phone. The services business is getting huge.
They make it sound like switching from iOS to Android is an impossible task (same with PC to Mac). Time to stop underestimating people’s ability to adapt.
