It had become sort of a tradition for Apple to provide sales figures for the first weekend after it opened up pre-orders for a new iPhone. Over the past few years, it has always been a record-breaking weekend for the company. However, now that iPhone sales have been on the decline for two consecutive quarters, perhaps Apple is really concerned about dwindling sales. The company today confirmed that it’s no longer going to provide precise sales figures for the iPhone.
In a statement provided to CNBC, the company says that it expects the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus to be “incredibly popular” with customers. Acknowledging that it has announced how many new iPhones have been sold as of the first weekend in the past, Apple says that it is now at a point that it knows before even taking the first pre-order that “we will sell out of iPhone 7.”
It further explains that since these initial sales are going to be governed by supply and not demand it has decided that these figures are no longer a representative metric for its investors and customers. This is why Apple is not going to be releasing a first-weekend sales number any longer for the iPhone.
What Apple is basically saying here is that it’s convinced the iPhone 7 is going to perform well and that it’s not worried about demand because the new flagship’s sales will entirely depend on how many units it can ship because apparently, customers are just waiting to pick them all up.
Apple has also reiterated its financial guidance for the September quarter which predicts declining iPhone sales as well as a revenue drop of nearly 10 percent year-over-year.
Even if this decision certainly doesn’t mean that things are bad for Apple, it goes to show that it’s not all smooth sailing for the Cupertino company.
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