Shipments of the iPhone in 2016 will fall significantly, mainly due to weak sales of iPhone SE and lack of top features in the iPhone 7, says analyst from KGI Securities Ming-Chi Kuo.
Kuo is known with his correct predictions of specific new features in iPhone and premiere dates, but at the same time there are many gaps in his rumors.
The report predicts that under the worst case scenario, Apple will ship 190 million iPhones during 2016, which is lower than the 193 million it shipped in 2014.
In the best case scenario, the company could ship 205 million devices. That’s a decline of 18.1 percent and 11.6 percent year-over-year, respectively.
Both of these numbers, however, are below analyst expectations of between 210 million and 230 million units.
Additionally, Kuo anticipates that Apple will be the only top-five smartphone brand in 2016 to see decline in shipments year-over-year. This means that Apple would under-perform the overall smartphone industry, which is something it has never done.
Kuo has previously said that he believes Apple will launch an all-glass iPhone, with an AMOLED display, in 2017. That would coincide with another analyst’s claim that Apple has plans to launch an “iPhone 8,” instead of an “iPhone 7s,” in 2017, which will feature wireless charging (something many are looking for), OLED display, and no physical Home button.
There are all kind of rumors going around these days about what the iPhone 7 will be and what features it’s going to have. We still have about six months to go before the iPhone 7 so it’s a bit too early to write off Apple’s next flagship smartphone at this point in time.
