Barclays analyst Tim Long is of the opinion that the optimism surrounding the first 5G-enabled iPhone is massively overblown. He notes that a similarly anticipated supercycle from 3G to 4G never panned out. In fact, the first 4G-ready iPhone, the iPhone 5, witnessed the most deceleration in unit growth in iPhone history.
Backing this up is a Digitimes report that expects iPhone sales to reach around 63-68 million units in the second half of 2020, a decline of more than five million units when compared to iPhone 11 shipments during the same period.
The publication believes this could be attributed to a delay of four to six weeks in the mass production and official launch of the iPhone 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Apple had previously confirmed this year’s iPhone is behind schedule.
The silver lining here is that the unemployment benefits that the US government will provide could boost the sales of the iPhone 12 series by 10 million units in the second half of 2020.
On the other hand, demand will be impacted negatively if WeChat is removed from the AppStore in China and Digitimes believes sales of the iPhone will decline by nearly 10 percent to 190 million units if this materializes.
WeChat is an indispensable part of digital life in China, and a survey shows that consumers in the country would rather abandon the iPhone than the app.
The iPhone 12 may start at $749
Previous estimates about iPhone 12 2020 shipments are not in harmony with each other, ranging from Cannacord’s forecast of 168 million to Wedbush’s forecast of 215 million units.
Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 12 in September before rolling out the lineup in October. Per estimates, about 350 million of the existing 950 million iPhones are in an upgrade window and this, coupled with the fact that these would be the first 5G-ready iPhones, had raised the possibility of a supercycle.
Previously, a lower starting price than last year’s model was also expected to be a contributing factor to the supercycle but according to a recent report, the base model could actually be priced higher.
