Sales of the iPhone 7 may not be as great as Apple hoped for, with analysts suggesting shipments have fallen compared to last year.
GfK, Germany’s largest market research firm, says that sales of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus over the launch weekend were down by 25% year-on-year. That’s compared to last September’s iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus launch, which saw Apple achieve record-breaking sales.
For contrast, last year’s iPhone duo managed combined sales of 13 million units over their first weekend in the wild. That was a significant leap over the 10 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units Apple sold on the 2014 launch weekend.
Normally, we’d have exact figures to compare, but this year Apple chose not to release launch weekend sales figures for the new iPhones. Earlier this month, Apple released a statement explaining why it made the decision to hold back the numbers:
“We expect iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will be incredibly popular with customers and we are thrilled to begin taking pre-orders on September 9. Customers will receive their new iPhones starting September 16.
In years past, we’ve announced how many new iPhones had been sold as of the first weekend following launch. But as we have expanded our distribution through carriers and resellers to hundreds of thousands of locations around the world, we are now at a point where we know before taking the first customer pre-order that we will sell out of iPhone 7.
These initial sales will be governed by supply not demand, we have decided that it is no longer a representative metric for our investors and customers. Therefore we won’t be releasing a first-weekend number any longer. We are reiterating the financial guidance for the September quarter that we provided on July 26.”
Apple's iPhone 7 was revealed at a dedicated launch event in California on September 7, 2016
These low sales have reportedly led to lower component orders for future iPhone 7 models, according to Digitimes. The industry news site says that chip orders for the new phones will be down by 20% in the first quarter of 2017, citing Apple suppliers:
“Apple has requested its manufacturing partners stock ICs for a combined 50 million iPhone 7/7 Plus units in the third quarter of 2016, and another 45 million units in the fourth quarter…the estimated volume for the first quarter of 2017 has reduced to 35-37 million units…”
The iPhone 7 became available for pre-order on September 9, and went on sale on September 16.