Turns out pre-result reports of demise of iPhone were FUD

The world’s most popular smartphone

Back in the dim distant days of early last week, just before Apple announced better than anticipated financial results we all thought iPhone sales were tanking.

Since then, we’ve learned Apple’s smartphone accounted for the top two biggest selling smartphones in China. Apple explained how deferred Covid impact aside, the iPhone actually saw sales grow there, and today we find out that the iPhone 15 Pro Max is and was actually the world’s best-selling smartphone worldwide.

It’s almost as though whoever is paying to propagate all the earlier speculation had an interest in driving AAPL shares lower so they could buy in cheap to take profits later, but that would be a terrible indictment of the fundamentals of a capitalist system in which the investors also own the media (and ofttimes the government), so let’s simply pretend we don’t see it.

What are the numbers??

Since we know everything is fine, here’s the latest post-results iPhone estimatitation (which is not a word) from Counterpoint:

• Apple took four of the top five and five of the top ten best-selling smartphones worldwide. It took c. 15.6% of all sales.
• Samsung took the other slots.
• Seven out of ten smartphones sold were premium.
• No one else got a shot.

What Counterpoint said

“Consumers are holding onto their smartphones for longer periods because upgrades are offering limited differentiation in features. This leads consumers to opt for high-end smartphones to ensure their devices remain technologically relevant for a longer duration. Going forward, we expect the top 10 best-selling smartphones to capture a larger share of total smartphone sales as OEMs are focusing on leaner portfolios with premium features, including GenAI.”

Apple smartphones sold in the quarter likely to be able to run the company’s upcoming take on Gen AI include:

• iPhone 15 Pro Max, which took 4.4% of sales.
• The iPhone 15, which grabbed 4.3%.
• The iPhone 15 Pro, which snagged 3.7%.
• The iPhone 14, which was snapped up 1.9% of the time.
• And IPhone 15 Plus, which drew 1.3% of sales.

All of these will highly probably run Apple’s Gen AI software, which means the company already sells AI phones – and Macs.

So, there you go.

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