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April 19, 2016


abdul muis

How can BB number be that high with only less than a million unit sold per quarter? That's like BB from 3.5-4.5 years ago still 100% in use.

abdul muis

I'll repost this here....

You're iPhone will expired in .....
"Apple has said the iPhones have a life expectancy of three years and so does the Apple watch while AppleTV devices expire in four years."

abdul muis

(sorry to put this here)

intresting report.

Data Collection: decreased over 40% to 0.08% of installs
Spyware: decreased 60% to 0.02% of installs
Hostile Downloader: decreased 50% to 0.01% of installs


No, Wayne.

Tomi already said that the average upgrade cycle is 18 months. The rest is second and third hand use.

Don't twist the numbers around to your liking. 3 years on average sounds reasonable for smartphones - not just for Apple but for the industry as a whole. Many last longer, but a significant quantity won't even survive so long because their users mishandle them.

My old Android phone is 5 years old now and still good enough for someone who doesn't need to have internet access all the time. But that old thing is far more robust than all those shitty 'premium' metal cases that have become so popular - not just at Apple. I guess the real reason for their popularity is that they are so fragile that they bend and break easier, i.e. shorter replacement cycle.

Tomi T Ahonen

Hi abdul, Lullz, Tester, Wayne

abdul - the Blackberry number like all installed base, reflect all still in use and because of Blackberry's rapid decline in its new sales, that is mostly older phones 'still in use'. But is 15M reasonable? Just adding the last 2 years, Blackberry sold 13.7M units and essentially all of those will be in use as anyone who had a BB before but didn't like it, will have gone long since to rivals and these are very hard-core loyalist BB users. But it now also has a meaningful slice of very old phones still in circulation. Yeah am very confident 15M is about the right number.

BTW to all - I wanted to include the Symbian number just for contest (and rub it in with Elop haha)

On the iPhone ownership and 3 year period, most who own an iPhone won't hold onto it for 3 years but many will. Think of your own smartphone ownership, us geeky users will want new tech fast and 2 years is an eternity to hold onto a smartphone when the newer ones keep getting better tech. The global average is no longer 18 months, its up to 21 months and growing for the average replacement cycle for smartphones - that means many replace smartphones FASTER than in 21 months, some will replace their phone every year. That is more true of rich people for whom a 600 dollar cost is peanuts, than for low income people who recently bought their first smartphone. So those who replace every year skew STRONGLY to iPhones vs Androids. But equally - the total life of iPhones is FAR longer than those of average cheapo Androids - partly as Apple products also are VERY well made - and being expensive - they also are often better taken care of (and not given to kids as readily as cheaper phones).

With bad phones we want to get rid of them fast. So some of the brands with problems like say HTC on the Android side have had users quickly get rid of them and wanting to replace as soon as it becomes practical.

But yeah, Apple has the longest replacement cycle and has the best rate of surviving to the second-hand market (something that used to belong to Nokia) which extends the total usage of a relevant fraction of iPhones in use. With all that, Apple sold 15% of new smartphones in 2014 and 16% in 2016, that is down a lot from the peaks at 20% so even with the long life span, iPhone share of installed base is not expected to grow, it should come down at a gentle pace but will continue to stay well above the new sales market share level.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

abdul muis


OK. It feel like already 3 years since BB decline around 1 million device/quarter.

abdul muis



I still have Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Dual Core / 1GB RAM). It still good for playing games, Hangout, Gmail, Web browse, Youtube, etc. The only problem is whatsapp. If I installed whatsapp, after 1-2 months of receiving message/picture/video, the phone will lag beyond useable.

abdul muis


iPhone... "It may get slower with OS upgrades but that's another story".

Since you mention it, I was reading the article about Apple sabotage the old iPhone to be slow with OS upgrade & the article from financialexpress (the link in my previous post), but forget to put that link too.


I was wondering have you try using the 3GS with whatsapp in 2016. Really using it? Like having a 8-10GB file (photo, chat, voice, video) in Whatsapp folder? Because I'm not talking freshly installed whatsapp. I'm talking about a very active whatsapp usage with Galaxy Nexus with about 8GB-10GB files in whatsapp folder.

abdul muis
Global smartphone shipments reach 292 million units in 1Q16, says TrendForce

* Combined shipments (including exports) from China-based brands reached 125 million units in the first quarter, surpassing the combined shipments from Samsung and Apple for the first time, and also accounting for 42.9% of the global smartphone shipments, up from 41.5% in the previous quarter.
* Apple posted its largest quarterly decline ever for iPhone shipments, totaling only 42 million units in the first quarter, plummeting 43.8% from 75 million units shipped a quarter earlier.
* Samsung's first-quarter shipments exceeded expectations and reached 81 million units, up 2.5% from the prior quarter. Samsung boosted its smartphone sales by launching its flagships Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge ahead of schedule and stepping up its promotional activities.
* Huawei's first-quarter shipments came in at 27 million units, or a drop of around 20% compared with the prior quarter. Nonetheless, Huawei retained its rankings as the top brand in China and the third-largest vendor worldwide.
* Lenovo smartphone shipments reached 17 million units in the first quarter, translating to a small quarterly decline of 5.6%. Lenovo will be focusing on foreign markets this year and have assigned 80% of its total shipments for exports.
* Xiaomi shipped about 16 million units of smartphones in the first quarter and is now in close competition with Lenovo for the number two spot in China, TrendForce said.

abdul muis


"The new Android versions have also been slower then the new ones. What's the point?"

The point is, if Apple did make the old iPhone slower, it will be a good reason for that person to upgrade to iPhone SE or big iPhone. Otherwise, there is no reason to upgrade at all.

"I have a iPhone 3GS 32GB here and can't really understand what would be the problem with having 10GB of files on the phone. The files can be stored there but what's the point?"

Then, it's not apple-to-apple comparison. I could put lots of files in my GNex, and it won't slow down. I could install WA and use the storage for other things till end, and no slow down....

AGAIN, what I said... THE problem of slow GNex is the bad programming of WA programmer, that make WA hog the memory if there's a lot of WA content in the phone.



"This behavior is one reason why iPhone has been gaining more installed base than market share. Android phones have this problem that they became really slow if you use certain apps."

Perfect FUD and completely wrong. Of course old phones become slow if you fill their limited storage, or organize data in a way that managing it brings out performance issues. That has nothing to do with Android but only with the software asking for more resources than such old hardware got - which ultimately boils down to sloppily programmed software. Android's problem here lies elsewhere: Java makes incredibly easy to write such software!

And what people like you fail to mention is that an iPhone of the same age is completely obsolete because Apple deciding to end support for it. For this old Android phone I still can install most of today's software.

abdul muis


Bravo bravo...
You're answering me without answering me...
Well done


The piece of garbage Windows Phone is dying away... even our microsoft astroturfers, including Baron95, are not telling ups how wonderful it is any more ....LOL!

Remember: NO ONE WANTS WINDOWS ON A PHONE!!!! ...they never did LoL!

Wayne Borean

LOL. My first iPhone lasted three months. Our Evil Siamese Cat TM decided that it would make a good water bowl ornament. My wife and I saw her shove it off the kitchen counter, where it was charging. Right into her water bowl!

The replacement had later five years, and is still in use.

We also have an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 6 in the house, along with two cheap androids. The cheap androids are less than two years old, and no longer in use. Everybody hated them.

But that's us. We think Apple makes a damned good phone. Of course if we'd tried a top of the line android we might have liked it, but since I'm on disability we tend to be really careful with what we spend our money on.

abdul muis


I have BMW 750 & Mercedes Benz S500, I also got a dozen of Tata Nano, and we all hate the Tata.... Nice comparison....




Good info buddi.
iSheep lullz start cry now.
iPhone crash

Per "wertigon" Ekström

If Apple sold only 42M units, that's a catastrophic collapse of units since they sold 61M units last year (e.g. 30% unit collapse)

I'm waiting for the official numbers however, that number seems suspiciously low. I'm anticipating a lesser decrease in numbers. Again however, my rough forecasts for anyone that cares can be found here:

Data -

Apple vs Global market -

Apple moving average marketshare -

Per "wertigon" Ekström


If you don't trust me then take a copy of the data. That copy won't change now will it?

But yes, I will revise those documents as Tomi and Apple fills in the details.

It is also a rough forecast and I don't sit on all data so it's bound to be off by as much as 10M or so for Apple.

Tomi has a far better analysis basis than I do, but for the general trend - it's down for Apple. :)

Per "wertigon" Ekström


I redraw my model after I get facts that tell me the model is off. So the numbers I give today are constantly revised as the facts move along. Most analysts work this way.

To expect me not to change and revise my model is simply silly. About as silly as expecting a boxer cannot dodge any punches.

What does not change however is the direction Apple is headed. They had a great year with iPhone 6 - But it was a one-off. Now it looks like Samsung will be strong again. :)

Tomi T Ahonen

Hi everybody

On the Apple pattern, its now going to change and be far less the 'staircase' model of one huge jump in sales going to Q4 (in Calendar Quarters not Apple Fiscal Quarters, so Q4 is Oct-Dec and Q1 is Jan-Mar quarter etc) and then have three relatively flat quarters as the peak recedes, and as Apple launches its next new model just in the last days of the weakest of those three ie Q3. With the dual launch dates now, one in the Autumn and the other in the Spring, the extreme variation within any 12 month cycle will be significantly dampened but still the main new phone launch will produce again a peak as before.

With that, the past four years have established a rather consistent pattern of iPhone sales. If we consider the calendar quarters, Q1 is typically down 16% vs previous year's Q4, then Q2 is down another 21% vs Q1. Q3 is up 6% with the new launch and first days, but then Q4 is up 68% vs Q3. And this pattern continues. Its been pretty close to that for the past four years (obviously am excluding the year when the launch window was changed ie 2011 5 years ago where the long delay to the new iPhone meant a prolonged wait and thus a higher spike).

For 2015 four quarters, the above average model would suggest (Calendar) Q1 of 2015 should have been 84% of the Christmas sales of 2014 ie 62.8M (reality was 61.1M). Q2 then as 79% of Q1 actual should have been 48.2M (reality 47.5M), Q3 should have been 50.3M (was 48.0M) and Q4 should have been 80.5M (was 74.8M).

As you can see, the model is quite close to what happened and on most quarters it would predict the actual iPhone sales better than most 'expert' analysts of Wall Street (and helped me be usually among the most accurate iPhone unit sales forecasters, when I'd take the other factors into consideration than strictly the mathematical average in that pattern).

Now. That model suggests iPhone should be selling now at 84% of the Christmas iPhone sales level ie 63.1 million - and nobody is expecting the January-March quarter to be anything like that good. We received repeated news from just about all sources that iPhone factories are not as busy, that parts are not in short supply, that the market share numbers of iPhone is consistent with bigger decline etc. This is part of why clearly Apple rushed its Nano to the market - had Apple had this launch date well planned in advance (ie known all year 2015 that the new model WILL launch in 2016 and that the launching pattern will be changed from one annual launch date of all iPhones to two launch dates) then the iPhone 5SE would have been ready for sales on the last four or so days of March to boost the year's first calendar quarter fiscal reporting at Apple. That will of course become the pattern from next year so the first sales date for whatever iPhones are launched in the Spring will appear in stores on the last days of March.

Once again, a decline in iPhone sales from Christmas quarter 2015 to the January quarter 2016 is not in any way 'bad news'. The whole INDUSTRY sees a downturn in smartphone shipments in this quarter. But the SIZE of the decline, in particular the hit to market share that is likely to come - that is news. But now Apple has already announced its answer to this 'problem' ie iPhone 5SE - so it should not be hysteria all around.

For us.. this is the last quarterly result where the maximum volatility in the iPhone unit shipment numbers was in play - but we all know how to counter that - we use the 12 month moving average as the measure of how Apple is doing vs the competition - that means always every quarter we factor out the within-year-seasonality which is exceptionally volatile with Apple's launch pattern. So we are not alarmed either way, when the big spikes come, or when the big drops come.

And luckily from now on, going into the April-June quarter and ahead, Apple will see a far less extreme pattern to its sales.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

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