The first reports of the iPhone 16 sales data have been leaked and it’s not looking good for Apple. iPhone 16 series first-weekend sales are down a painful 12.7% when compared with last year’s iPhone 15 series. This significant drop can likely be attributed to the Apple Intelligence features not only being delayed, but also being due to be released in dribs and drabs over the forthcoming months.
These new details are courtesy of Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, via 9to5Mac – and they paint a pretty bleak picture for Apple. The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max might be set to be the new best gaming iPhones thanks to their powerful A18 Pro chipsets, but they’ve actually fared the worst in year-on-year sales figures. iPhone 16 Pro pre-order sales have dropped a massive 27%, while the premium iPhone 16 Pro Max fell 16% compared to last year’s most expensive iPhone 15 model. This suggests the addition of a new tetraprism camera and Camera Control might not have turned out to be as much of a selling point as Apple anticipated.
However, it’s not all bad news. The iPhone 16 Plus had a much better first weekend than its predecessor, outselling the iPhone 15 Plus by 48%. The base model iPhone 16 pre-orders also performed relatively well, up 10% on last year’s equivalent. The growth of the Plus model is particularly interesting, with rumors circulating that Apple might be replacing the middle child of every iPhone series with a new Air model for next year’s iPhone 17 line-up. Still, it seems unlikely that the iPhone 16 Plus’ relative success will push Apple to change its plans, as even after the first-weekend increase, it’s still the worst-performing of the four new devices.
So, what are the takeaways from this initial data? Well, the bottom line is simple: there isn’t as much demand for the iPhone 16 as Apple and the rest of the industry anticipated. While there’s no definitive reason at the time of writing, Apple Intelligence’s delays could be a big reason consumers are holding off. Kuo’s report also mentions Apple’s continued battle with increased competition in China. The analyst has a point, with Huawei’s new triple-foldable stealing some of Apple’s spotlight and brands such as Honor and OnePlus offering solid alternatives with some of the best Android phones of 2024.
It’s also fair to say that Apple isn’t helping itself with its latest devices, especially the iPhone 16 Pro, which doesn’t offer nearly as many meaningful hardware updates as we might like. The Camera Control button is a nice touch, but where is the innovation that made Apple a market leader? Worse still, the iPhone 16 arriving months before its most exciting features sets a worrying precedent for Apple, and one that the brand should avoid unless it wants to be seen as taking advantage of its position in the industry. Big names can become old news quickly, as anyone who owned a Blackberry in 2007 can attest to.
The big caveat to this new sales data is that we could see an uptick when Apple Intelligence finally arrives, with the first AI features, including ChatGPT-enhanced Siri and Clean Up, launching on phones next month. However, there’s another complication, as Apple is seemingly staggering the arrival of AI features, and we still don’t have a clear answer when non-English-speaking users can anticipate them. Put simply, it’s a bit of a messy picture right now, and we won’t have a clearer idea of the iPhone 16 series’ success until after Apple Intelligence starts rolling out.