Smartphone Wars 2015: Now Apple. iPhone sold 231.4 million units for roughly 15% market share

Apple announced its Q4 (Christmas quarter) results and reports it sold 74.8 million iPhones. which is a preliminary market share of 15.4% for the quarter. The unit sales is up 56% compared to Q3 but as our readers remember, Apple cannot be analyzed on quarter-to-quarter unit sales because of the once-per-year new model launch cycle, so that is not comparable to the other companies and performance vs last quarter. Nor should one quarter of Apple be compared to the same quarter last year (which would suggest the growth rate of under one half of one percent, also totally not true). The way to compare Apple is to see growth in the past 12 month moving average. And conveniently, now at the end of the year, we have that number so its easy to do. Apple sold 231.4 million iPhones which is up 20% compared to 2014 when they sold 192.7 million iPhones. Thats the real growth rate for Apple's iPhone. Now what is Apple's market share for the year? I have been using the 1.55 Billion total smartphone shipment estimate, at which level Apple's smartphone market share would be 14.9% ie flat compared to 2014 when it was also 14.9%. With this number, however, I would warn that several signs suggest a slow-down of year-end smartphone sales globally, if the year ends up less than 1.55B then the market share(s for all brands) will be a bit better than my preliminary estimates. So in rough terms if you round it up to even percentages, iPhones is at about 15%, same as last year. Apple is certain to finish 2015 again as second largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and ahead of Huawei.

Note to my readers, I had predicted iPhone annual market share to continue to decline as it has for several years, even now with the new phablet-sized screen larger screen iPhones sold for the first full calendar year. I was clearly wrong, that decline in market share did not happen - but that was quite close, it may end up being flat (we will know when the big analyst houses report on their final numbers to crunch the math). Certainly there was no dramatic jump back up in Apple's market share as some thought would happen, but yeah, I got this one wrong. Not wrong by much, but wrong nonetheless. Also I warned early last year that this Christmas 2015 quarter was the first time we might see a 'peak quarter' of iPhone sales. Apple beat that threshold by 400,000 units, so we have not 'yet' seen peak quarterly iPhone sales, but now its almost certain this current quarter Q1 (January) quarter of 2016 will see the moment when iPhone unit sales have ended up growing. But again with the see-saw nature of Apple's seasonal sales, it means the 'peak' quarter of iPhone unit sales of all time, can happen earliest at the Christmas quarter of 2016. It means also that we may see this year 2016 as the first year where iPhone unit sales decline on an annual measure, and early Q1 and Q2 numbers will speak to that possibility as we will be monitoring on this blog in coming months.

Also to be clear, obviously Apple is hugely profitable, congrats. We do not discuss share evaluations and corporate performance more on this blog than note which companies are profitable, as the viability of their platforms are the relevant issue for our readers. This is not an Wall Street investment speculation blog. Don't bother to post comments celebrating how huge profits Apple is generating, that is not going to be discussed by my readers and such comments will be immediately deleted. Apple is not in any threat of dying or suffering (other than our often recurring themes complaining that Apple isn't delivering as well as it could, such as this decline in market share in the past years, it was totally avoidable and had Apple done its lower-cost smaller-screen 'C' series iPhones earlier, and at lower price points, Apple would be at 20% market share today and generate even more profits haha - but we will NOT discuss the profits here..). I deal with the metrics and statistics of the mobile industry so the numbers we care about is the size of the platforms such as how many people have iPhones or are buying iPhones. Last year it was about one in six smartphones and about one in eleven mobile phones of any kind including dumbphones sold, was an iPhone. Ok that was Apple, we now await the rest of the numbers and soon hope to have the Top 10 final numbers for the industry and the full year.

Comments

[Catriona]

The larger question next quarter is what will the market as a whole do. Apple's revenue forecast of $50-53 billion vs. last year's $58 billion suggest a decline in its unit sales, but about half that is the strong dollar. My guess is that Apple's market share will stay flat as the market shrinks. Granted, the "smartphone" market may "grow" as the last of the feature phones get phased out in emerging markets, so I think the more important metric now is share of the total phone market.

[Catriona]

Interestingly, Apple's ASP rose to $691 from $687 in the prior year. That suggests that the 6S/6S Plus is selling at about the same rate as the 6 did last year. I'm sure Apple will get a question about inventory, though.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Catriona

I think iPhone is now going to flatline in unit sales (not market share) and as the smartphone market grows, it means necessarily declining market share (among smartphones). Also total handset market is still growing while very slowly so if iPhone unit sales do not pass 231.4 million again for 2016 as they did in 2015, then also the total phone market share would turn to decline (for first time).

It becomes quite urgent for Apple to rush the smaller-screen C model(s) out - some gossip calling it the iPhone 5 SE - and there are expectations of a Spring launch for the cheaper models. Depending on when they launch and more importantly, how much cheaper than the flagship 6S models, that is the key now to can Apple again grow unit sales in 2016. But yes, the guidance seems to suggest this January quarter iPhone sales will not match the same quarter last year, so the year 2016 would start with unit sales down vs 2015.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Catriona

PS haha, a possible remake of the 'lost opportunity' battle of last year, rumors saying Samsung will return with microSD card support and waterproofing to Galaxy flagship and obviously Sony returned to 'logical' naming on Xperia Z series, we might see more of a challenge to Apple ie making the race even tougher now, in the Spring of 2016, for Apple. And obviously no, Apple is not in any sort of 'trouble' haha...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Catriona]

@Tomi, interestingly, Apple said FX had a $49 impact on its ASP. So they are still selling high end devices quite well. They also said that the March YoY would be the most "challenging," which to me means that they will launch the 6C/5SE in March or April. There are conflicting rumors about whether it will have an A8 or A9. If it's the A9, and priced at $450 (or $500-$550 in anticipation of a price drop to $450 after the iPhone 7 launch), it could sell very well. I'm guessing that if it is $450 at launch it will have the A8, and that if it has the A9 it will start at $500-$550.

Tim Cook just said that iPhone units will decline in the quarter, but not by the 15-20% suggested by an analyst. I think they sold 51 million in the March quarter last year, so that probably means they will sell around 45-48 million.

[Catriona]

Actually, Apple sold 61.2 million iPhones in the March 2015 quarter. So I'm guessing that the current quarter will be around 55-57 million.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Catriona

Yeah, seems reasonable numbers. Also you probably noticed, I did my 'sky is not falling' Apple totally rules this industry, blog... gosh gotta do that every few years and the 'Apple will not take over the world' blog almost every alternate year haha... But yeah, Apple will settle into the 200M - 250M unit annual sales level for next decade.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[ch]

@Catriona

asp gone up but is that because of their high end or because their low end has gone up. I think it is the latter because last year the cheapest iphone was slightly above €300 and now it is above €400