Struggling To Sell iPhones, Apple Blames Users For Not Upgrading To Newer Models

So it is news that Apple isn’t doing pretty well with sales. Reportedly, their gross margin has reduced to the lowest it has ever been, and one might wonder why!

Recently, CEO Tim Cook in a letter addressed to the investors mentioned that the revenue which came from iPhones was much less than what he anticipated and what according to him might be the reason – he blamed the users because they wouldn’t upgrade to newer models and that they are “taking advantage” of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacement.

“iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be” – Tim Cook.

Long story short, people are not buying the newer iPhone models.

Hence, we took a quick sneak-peak to the past to see what might have been the problem.

According to reports, in December 2017 Apple admitted to secretly slowing down older phones on newer versions of iOS. They claimed that it was to prevent “unexpected shutdowns” caused by older batteries not being able to support the new operating system.

As a result, they received a humongous backlash for not having informed their customers or given them an alternative.

To recover from this, Apple offered its users cheaper battery replacement for iPhone 6 and later models. It cost as low as Rs.2,000 till the end of December 2018.

So, it might just be that users won’t invest on a newer model because the old ones work just fine. 

Also, in a market which is now occupied by companies such as Xiaomi and Huawei, people are choosing their models over Apple’s overpriced iPhones.

It is a little alarming when a company like Apple plays the blame-game. Isn’t it more logical to take a step back from the exorbitant pricing and just focus on innovations to attract users automatically instead of spending enormous amounts of money on marketing and fighting patent wars?