Let’s do the math. iPhone sales are down. Mac sales are down. iPad sales are, well, they were down for awhile. Nobody is counting such numbers anymore so we are left with guesstimates.
Still, guesstimation is all the rage in the 21st century and if you simply sit down with pencil and paper you’re sure to come up with The End Of Apple. Of course, such considerations are only true if you write for Forbes Magazine, the worldwide leader in digital yellow journalism.
Lies & Statistics
You know how the rich get richer? They lie. That’s the only thing I can come up with. If the hijinks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue tell you anything, it’s that truth and facts are made of flubber or Silly Putty.
Stephen McBride declares The End Of Apple.
Here I am sitting in a cab in New York City. I’m headed uptown to Columbia University where we’ll hold the first-ever American Disruption Summit. The driver and I are talking about the absurd price tag of the latest Apple iPhone.
Fair enough. I’d rather talk about Eli Manning’s future with the Giants, but whatever. Cabbies are known to know a little about everything. You know. Like Hedge Fund writers.
He’s shocked when I tell him the cheapest model is $1,149.
The cabbie should have called McBride a liar; or, liar, liar, pants on fire. But such a response might have dampened his tip.
The cheapest new iPhone is $749. What would you expect from fiction writers who dabble in yellow journalism?
Apple has had an incredible decade.
Fair enough. It’s always good to sprinkle in a little truth among the toadstools of anti-Apple rhetoric. Hey, how about a tasty topping of sales charts. They only go up at Apple. It’s a rule.
Apple’s business seems perfectly healthy. But there’s a secret hidden behind these headline numbers. Despite the revenue growth, Apple is selling fewer iPhones every year.
Samsung, too. Did you mention Samsung? Let’s get on with the lies, damned lies, and statistics, OK? We’re losing daylight, McBride.
In 2010, you could buy a brand-new iPhone 4 for 199 bucks.
False. That was a contract price.
In 2014, the newly released iPhone 6 cost 299 bucks.
False. That was a contract price.
Today the cheapest model of the latest iPhone X costs $1,149!
False. It’s $749.
It’s a 500% hike from what Apple charged eight years ago.
False. Worse than false. The original iPhone was $599. iPhone XR, the latest, is $749, so how about 25-percent increase. Which would you prefer to own? An original iPhone for $599? Or, an iPhone XR for $250 more?
But technology always gets cheaper over time.
Always? How do you explain Samsung Galaxy Note? Or, Google Pixel 3? Or all the premium Chinese smartphones with not quite, but nearly iPhone-like price tags?
Let’s call that one false, too.
Wait. There’s more!
Cell phone prices have come down roughly 92%. And yet, Apple has hiked its smartphone prices by 500%!
False.
This is just too easy.
Twelve years ago, only 120 million people owned a cell phone. Today over five billion people own a smartphone, according to IDC.
IDC? A premier guesstimator if there ever was one.
Apple was the driving force behind this explosion.
False. Apple set the standard but the driving force, for those who understand the industry, was Google and Android OS.
As the dominant player in a rapidly growing market, it become the most profitable publicly traded company in history.
Whoa. I don’t know what to do when one sentence is both false and true at the same time. Apple is not the most dominant in marketshare— just revenue and profits. With Samsung. Everybody else is a distant– and I mean very distant— third place.
iPhone sales growth stalled in 2015. This would’ve been the end for most businesses.
This is what Forbes calls insightful analysis. I call it masterful rubbish. Why would it be the end for a business that takes in more than half the smartphone industry’s profits and revenue?
How bad are iPhone sales?
It’s so bad that Apple now keeps it a secret.
False. Only unit sales. Like every other smartphone maker on planet earth. But not the earth where Forbes is the most read digital rag and where yellow journalism reigns supreme.
Apple announced it would stop disclosing iPhone unit sales. This is a very important piece of information. Investors deserve to know it. Yet Apple now keeps it secret.
Did McBride point out that Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Amazon, Google, Xiaomi, LG, et al have never ever never divulged their unit sales?
No.
Why not? Because Apple. Forbes is the anti-Apple antichrist of digital rags and comparing what Apple does to, well, any other company, would damage their anti-Apple narrative. Falsehoods don’t like facts, people.
A publicly traded company that makes most of its money from selling phones is no longer telling investors how many phones it sells!
Let’s compare. Where’s the list of other publicly traded companies that tell investors how many of whatever they sell?
Crickets.
McBride decided to go rogue from Forbes’ and do a comparison.
Nokia: One billion customers—can anyone catch the cell phone king?
Who caught Nokia?
Apple.
So, why would fiction writer McBride write such a ridiculous hit piece with a classically wrong but beautiful link bait headline followed by lie after lie after falsehood?
Money.
Forbes.com uses a “contributor model” in which a wide network of “contributors” writes and publishes articles directly on the website. Contributors are paid based on traffic to their respective Forbes.com pages; the site has received contributions from over 2,500 individuals, and some contributors have earned over US$100,000, according to the company.
Money talks.
So, how can you survive the coming end of Apple? Ignore it. Forbes paid shills will go away long before Apple goes away. The world will be a better place.
