Wall Street worries about cheaper, older iphone sales

Tencent Science and Technology (Lin Jingdong) Beijing time April 28 news, in recent months, a large number of consumers have begun to buy cheaper than the old version of the iphone 4, rather than the relatively expensive version of the iphone 5, which caused Wall Street's concern. As this is not the behavior of individual consumers and is becoming a market trend, Wall Street analysts are beginning to worry whether it means Apple has no ability to develop new products that match prices. This change not only slowly erodes Apple's profit margins, but analysts think it is enough to show that the iphone 5 is a disappointing product. "I don't think it's surprising that the IPhone 5 sales are worse than expected," said Brian Colello, an analyst at Morningstar (MorningStar). "Consumers who opt to buy the old iphone 4 do not value the iphone 5 's large size display, faster processors or 32GB of RAM, but more on the price of the product," he said. According to one consumer, it is not the kind of person who pursues the latest fashion, the new product is very fast, the latest product will soon be replaced by newer products, then it will be much cheaper. Apple may think that having that kind of consumer is no bad thing for Apple. Apple found that once people bought Apple's products, they would continue to buy more Apple products. Customer satisfaction is very high, consumer loyalty to the Apple brand is also very high. Carl Howe, a KARLHOWI analyst, recently wrote in a research note: "Apple's black hole ecosystem captures users who have never left." "These factors will give Apple some advantages, especially compared to the Google (Weibo) Android platform," he said. But many other analysts do not think so, because Apple's goodwill and business in recent years have been built on its ability to continually launch innovative products, especially the iphone. As long as innovative products, consumers are willing to pay a large price to buy. The IPhone 5 did that when it was first launched last September. Apple said the iphone 5 had sold 5 million units in the first 3 days of the IPO, compared with 4 million in the first 3 days of the iphone 4S when it was launched in 2011, while the iphone 4 sold only 3 in the first 1.7 million days of its 2010 IPO. But the iphone's sales are slowing down. Apple executives said in January that if the company could produce more old versions of the iphone, then iphone sales would be higher. After Apple held a conference call for earnings analysts in Tuesday, some analysts pointed out that the average iphone price had fallen from $641 trillion in the previous quarter to $613. So, according to William Power, an analyst at Baird, Ballhaus, the focus of sales isThe relatively low price of the iphone 4 tilt. Although Apple did not release sales figures for different versions of the iphone, a recent study by consumer FDI Research in Chicago said that in the first 3 months of 2013, among consumers who bought the iphone , 53% of consumers are buying the iphone 5 and, in comparable circumstances, buying the iphone 4S is 73%. Ben Reitzes, a Barclays analyst, wrote in a study this week: "The extent to which the IPhone 5 is accepted and its latest sales performance is testing our patience," Retz. "In addition to short-term profit margins, analysts worry that consumers who buy cheap, old versions of the iphone may not buy music and apps," he said. In addition, analysts are worried that the iphone 5S, which is rumoured to be released this fall, may not have enough new features to inspire consumers to buy. "This raises the question: Can Apple reignite the passion of the market with the iphone 5S," said Crenor, the Morningstar? Can it add enough new features to buy the latest iphone for consumers? ”