Apple to Miss Q2 Target, sees Increased Popularity in Older iPhones – Report

Apple unveiled the latest iPhone 6s and 6s Plus at an event held in San Francisco in early September last year. At the launch event, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple had quoted these devices as the most advanced phones ever. The devices have seen some major changeovers, mostly in terms of features than the design like 3D Touch, improved camera, doubled RAM capacity. According to the company, more than 13 million iPhones 6s and 6s Plus were sold in just first three days after starting the sale.

While everything seems to be good for Apple, the latest report from UBS brings in some interesting numbers just before a week from the official announcement of Q1 results. For the December quarter, the latest iPhone 6s and 6s Plus accounts to the 67% of the total iPhone sales which is much lower than the 75% share of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in December 2014. Even though the latest iPhones come with improved features, more consumers are choosing the year old iPhone 6 which is priced $100 lower than the latest iPhones.

Choosing the slightly lower priced iPhones also results in the lower average selling priced of $662 against the consensus of $680. The report also mentions Apple to fell short of its Q2 target by 5 million units against the consensus of 55 million. The average screen size and storage have been increased. There are few rumors about the 4-inch iPhone 6c/5e, which might bring the average selling price even lower.

Out of all the iPhones sales in 2015, 25% of them are from China itself. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are also the first Apple devices to go on sale in China along with the U.S & developed markets. There are few details leaked about the upcoming iPhone 7 that will be introduced in September this year suggesting some significant changes. If the leaked information is to be believed, then iPhone 7 will miss the 3.5mm audio port in favor of making the device even slimmer.

In October last year, Tim Cook had announced that the company is on the trend to beat its Q1 2015’s 74.5 million sale record in Q1 2016. The company is expected to achieve its target by selling 76 million handsets, 2% growth year-over-year. The official numbers from Apple are expected to be out on this coming Tuesday, i.e., 26th of this month, so stay tuned for more updates.