Apple has been the target of a fair amount of criticism over the past year, from its AI missteps to a strong distaste for its new design ethos. But the numbers donât lie, and if Apple knows how to do anything itâs sell iPhones. Specifically, three billion of them, as CEO Tim Cook announced on the companyâs earnings call today.
Thatâs an impressive number on its own, but itâs even wilder when you consider that Apple is picking up the pace. The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and the company reached 1 billion iPhones sold nine years later in 2016. Getting to 2 billion took only five years; from there itâs been just four years to sell another billion. Considering the rate at which young people â in this country, at least â prefer iPhones over Android, it seems like a trend thatâs bound to continue.
Thatâs also a lot of eggs in one basket. Appleâs own Eddy Cue recently admitted that âyou may not need an iPhone 10 years from now.â That should be pretty worrying if your biggest business is selling phones! Appleâs most notable foray into a forward-looking form factor hasnât exactly set the world on fire, either. It has somewhat famously fumbled its first attempts at adding meaningful AI features to its phones, too. At least from the outside, Apple doesnât seem terribly well prepared for that world we might be living in ten years from now.
The dilemma is clearly on Cookâs mind. Later in the earnings call when asked about the fate of phones as the dominant mobile platform, he mentioned that the company is âthinking about other things as well,â but thinks that emerging technologies âare likely to be complementary devices, not substitution.â Phones certainly seem safe in the short term, but maybe whatever Sam Altman and Jony Ive are cooking up will slow Appleâs roll a bit on the way to its four billionth iPhone sale.
