Apple experienced minimal iPhone growth in 2024 despite a significant rebound in the global smartphone market, according to new data published by IDC. Worldwide smartphone shipments increased 6.2% to reach 1.24 billion units, but iPhone shipments grew by just 0.4% during the same period.
The tepid performance underlines Apple's challenges in key markets like China, where domestic rivals are gaining ground through aggressive pricing and technological innovation. Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi and Huawei are investing heavily in hardware and software development as well as custom processor designs, with Huawei recently launching its new Mate 70 phone featuring its own home-grown chips.
Elsewhere, Android device makers collectively drove the market's recovery, achieving 7.6% growth mostly through strong performance in emerging markets across Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. These manufacturers appear to have succeeded by offering more affordable devices, with an average selling price of $295 compared to Apple's $1,000-plus premium iPhone positioning.
Despite the slower growth, Apple maintained its position as the industry's profit leader through its premium pricing strategy. According to IDC, the Apple's prospects may improve in 2025, with a forecast of 3.1% growth for iOS devices compared to 1.7% for Android smartphones.
Overall, the broader smartphone market's recovery was driven by pent-up demand for device upgrades in regions with lower smartphone penetration. However, IDC analysts noted that even heavily marketed features like generative AI have failed to significantly impact consumer demand or drive early upgrades, which doesn't bode well for the impact of Apple Intelligence on iPhone sales going into 2025.
Apple's iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will offer "significant design changes," The Information's Wayne Ma reports.
The two flagship iPhone 17 models will be the first high-end iPhones to feature an aluminum frame since the delineation of the iPhone lineup into Pro and non-Pro models. In recent years, lower-end iPhone models such as the iPhone SE and iPhone 16 have featured aluminum...
Black Friday 2024 is just a few days away, and as always this will be the best time of the year to shop for great deals. Right now, this includes big savings on popular Apple products like AirPods, Apple Watch, MacBook Air, iPad, and more.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps...
We're less than one week away from Black Friday on November 29, and Best Buy and Amazon currently have all-time low prices across Apple's entire iPad lineup. This includes Apple's 9th and 10th generation iPad, iPad mini 7, iPad Air, and iPad Pro.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which...
Monday November 25, 2024 8:40 am PST by Joe Rossignol
The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu today published an in-depth report about the "iPhone 17 Air," revealing several new details about the device.
The report said prototypes of the device have a thickness of between 5mm and 6mm, which would make it the thinnest iPhone ever. In comparison, iPhone 16 models are 7.8mm thick and iPhone 16 Pro models are 8.25mm thick.
Due to this...
Black Friday 2024 is just a few days away, and you can already find the year's best prices on nearly every Mac at Amazon. Specifically, this includes the new M4 iMac, M4 MacBook Pro, and the M2 and M3 MacBook Air. We've also included a great deal on the Apple Studio Display.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small...
Well, there wasn't a massive difference between iPhone 15 and 16 apart from a dedicated camera button which no one asked for. Or the delayed AI fiasco.
We need, as our American cousins say, something tangible that's worthy of upgrade. This will be unpopular opinion but there is nothing incitcing me to upgrade from my iPhone 13 Mini.
There really isn't much to do in terms of form factor, materials, or hardware performance at this late stage in smartphone development.
However, despite chips not advancing as fast as they used to, Apple could have reached record iPhone sales if they hadn't been as slow to announce and rollout AI as they have been:
Although the hype AI is getting is not fully warranted, and very disappointing on some level, the average consumer would want to buy a new iPhone if it came with features like an LLM Siri and a fully fledged suite of high quality generative AI features.
But Apple has just been too slow and the quality of its AI tools is not impressive.
I'm still convinced that Apple didn't add all the value to the $799 iPhone just to have it support AI in the near future, but much more to give buyers a reason to upgrade despite getting next to no AI while other brands are 2-3 years ahead of Apple.
AI is 95% hype. How else you do explain Apple’s image removal is touted as AI while Google has had this feature for years and it is not AI. The Google feature is better since it doesn’t have a safety lock out (maybe that is the AI part).
At some point they'll have to start putting the prices down. I mean, there has been no significant design change in years and perhaps most people don't care about AI features... there are so many times we can buy the same phone every year.
Apple is targeting profit over market share.
My opinion only but I doubt that Apple will be lowering prices soon :).
I enabled apple intelligence on my Mac and have yet to figure out a use for it. And I use Chatgpt multiple times per day so you would think I would have a use for something. Apple hasn't had an inspired phone design since the iPhone 4
