Absent for 18 months, the iPad finally has a new version!
On May 7th at 22:00 Beijing time, Apple officially released the new iPad series, with updates to iPad Pro and iPad Air.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the event, This is the most important day for the iPad since it was launched.
Despite Cook's solemnity, it is clear that the iPad family is not a major player in Apple's overall business. The one that always holds the flag for Apple is the iPhone.
Unfortunately, the current iPhone is no longer the leader of the pack it used to be.
In the first quarter of 2024, Apple dropped out of the top five in the Chinese smartphone market with a market share of 13.7%, joining the others category.
This is unprecedented for Apple. Last year, according to IDC data, Apple sold 234.6 million units, accounting for 20.1% of the market share, surpassing Samsung to become the best-selling brand in 2023.
In just one year, the iPhone has taken a big hit.
In the new year, Apple's hardware shipments continue to decline.
Most painful for Apple is the significant drop in shipments of its flagship business, the iPhone 15 series, in mainland China.
On May 6th, market research firm TechInsights released the latest data for the first quarter of 2024, with Chinese smartphone shipments reaching 63.3 million units, a 1% increase year-on-year after 11 consecutive quarters of decline. Among them, Apple dropped out of the top five with a market share of 13.7%, joining the others category.
The top five brands in market share are all Chinese domestic manufacturers: OPPO/OnePlus (17.1%), Honor (16.7%), Huawei (16.6%), Vivo (16.1%), and Xiaomi (15.0%).
Market research firm Canalys, known for its criticism of Apple, also released a report on April 26th, showing that in the first quarter of 2024, Apple had the largest decline among the top smartphone manufacturers, ranking fifth in shipments with 10 million units, a 25% year-on-year decrease.
Apple released its second quarter financial report for the 2024 fiscal year (ending in March 2024) in the early hours of May 3rd, revealing the stark reality of the current decline in its iPhone business.
According to the report, Apple generated revenue of $90.8 billion this quarter, a 4.3% decrease year-on-year. The core iPhone business revenue was $46 billion, a 10.5% year-on-year decline; the average selling price of the iPhone was around $917, a 1.3% year-on-year decrease.
To sum up Apple's current iPhone business in one sentence, it's selling fewer units and selling them cheaper.
In addition to the iPhone, the iPad family, which has not been updated for 18 months, generated revenue of $5.6 billion, a 16.7% year-on-year decline, lower than the market's consensus expectation of $5.91 billion.
In 2023, the iPad business already showed signs of decline, selling 8.995 million units, a 10% year-on-year decline and the largest decline among all tablet brands.
Apple's hardware business is in a serious slump, with iPhone, iPad, wearables, and other hardware businesses all experiencing varying degrees of decline except for the Mac business, which grew by 3.9% year-on-year.
The iPhone was once hailed as the performance ceiling of the mobile phone industry, with each generation of A-series SoC being a hot topic of discussion for a whole year, a target that the Android camp collectively sought to catch up to.
Since Apple began tiering the iPhone, it has completely lost the concept of being technologically advanced.
Starting from the iPhone 14 series, the regular version only uses the previous generation's SoC, while the Pro series uses the latest A-series SoC. Although this move has helped improve the gross margin of the iPhone business and increased the purchase intention of the product tier, the consumer reputation has undoubtedly been damaged.
The Wall Street Journal has specifically reported on the falling out of favor of the iPhone in Greater China: Some Chinese consumers no longer regard Apple's flagship products as the most technologically advanced; Huawei outperforms Apple in areas such as camera, battery life, and phone signal.
Indeed, over the past year, the advanced technologies brought by the Huawei Mate 60 series and Pura 70 series, such as the super-telephoto retractable lens, Beidou satellite communication, Kunlun architecture, and Xuanwu glass, have raised the bar for smartphone innovation.
The iPhone, still using a 60Hz screen, is directly associated with being outdated.
In addition to hardware configuration, AI is also an unavoidable must-have in the smartphone industry.
Since the debut of the Huawei Mate 60 series last year with the PanGu large-scale model, major smartphone brands have all placed their bets on AI, either embedding AI large models or integrating AI voice assistants.
Samsung, which has been competing with Apple for many years, sees AI as the key weapon to surpass Apple.
Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm, said in a media interview that 2024 will be the year of AI smartphones globally, with generative AI rapidly entering smartphones.
Canalys predicts that by 2024, 5% of smartphone shipments will be AI smartphones, and by 2027, this proportion will rise to 45%.
Under the widely accepted idea that AI equals advanced, Chinese smartphone manufacturers have never missed the wave of AI.
In addition to the Huawei PanGu large model, currently, Xiaomi has announced the adoption of the world's first AI large model computational photography architecture Xiaomi AISP; Blue Green manufacturers Vivo and OPPO have introduced the Blue Heart and Andes large models, directly integrated into the self-developed systems OriginOS 4.0 and ColorOS 14; Honor has introduced the AI full-scenario operating system MagicOS 8.0 and the Magic AI large model.
It must be said that while AI large models on mobile devices may not have a strong user experience for the average person, the biggest use of AI is to create sales gimmicks, add selling points to products, and encourage consumers to switch to new phones.
After all, in recent years, both the iOS and Android camps have collectively entered a bottleneck, with major brands lacking eye-catching innovative breakthroughs in addition to daily upgrades to SoCs, cameras, screens, and other hardware. The lack of innovation means severe homogenization, with phones becoming cumbersome and largely similar, and the average replacement cycle for users now exceeding 31 months. The overall mobile phone market has reached its lowest shipment level in a decade.
The last surge in smartphone sales dates back to the arrival of the 5G era.
This is also the most significant significance of AI: stimulating user consumption.
After a year of the boom in AI large models on mobile devices, Apple has finally realized the importance of AI, actively abandoning its car-making project and focusing on the field of AI, frequently releasing its AI progress in the market.
Starting in 2023, Apple has acquired more than 30 AI startups in succession, the most among tech giants.
Renowned Apple leaker Ming-Chi Kuo previously reported that Apple is estimated to spend $4.75 billion in 2024 to purchase over 20,000 servers to support its AI technology development, a capital expenditure far exceeding that of $620 million in 2023.
With money invested in people and equipment, it is evident how determined Apple is to achieve a leading position in AI.
However, compared to AI front-runners such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, and Meta, Apple is undoubtedly like a toddler just learning to walk. In the field of AI, Apple may even be inferior to Samsung.
Using AI to increase the shipment volume of all Apple hardware devices is a long-term plan, as Cook has said, and it is also a must. Cook has repeatedly stated in public, Whether it’s the iPhone, iPad, Mac, or VisionPro, we hope to incorporate AI into all of them.
However, long-term plans do not help Apple's current predicament, so to increase the overall shipment volume of the iPhone business, action must be taken now.
Luckily, Apple still has two aces up its sleeve, the upcoming 618 and September new product launch events.
Since 2022, the 618 e-commerce promotion has become Apple's lowest price discount day of the year, with the iPhone series consistently occupying the top three spots on various e-commerce platforms' phone sales charts.
Discount promotions are always the best solution to increase shipment volume, so I believe that after this year's 618, iPhone shipments will see a significant increase.
The second ace up Apple's sleeve is the annual September new iPhone launch event.
The upcoming iPhone 16 series is highly anticipated, with rumors suggesting it may be equipped with the Google Gemini large model and OpenAI ChatGPT.
If the rumors are true, then the iPhone 16 series will be the most compelling Apple product in recent years.
This article is from the WeChat official account: Zinc Finance (ID: xincaijing), author: Sun Pengyue