The iPhone 8 saw Apple's weakest new phone sales in years, while iPhone X demand outstripped supply within minutes of the start of pre-orders last night. It would be easy to conclude that an underwhelming iPhone 8 has been ignored by consumers in favor of a much more exciting iPhone X, but it's actually not that simple.
Apple's online store now shows new pre-orders of all iPhone X SKUs shipping in 5-6 weeks in the US—more than a month after launch day. Generally, iPhone 8 pre-order shipments didn't get backed up that far. Apple also said consumer demand for the X was "off the charts" in a statement after launch day units sold out within 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners told The Wall Street Journal that the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus only accounted for 16 percent of iPhone sales in the September quarter, compared to 43 percent for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus last year. The iPhone 8 models constituted 2.4 percent of iPhones in use one month after shipments began—predecessors managed more than twice that share in the same time period. A survey of carrier stores showed the cheaper iPhone 7 outselling the iPhone 8 in the US and UK, though customers who shop at carrier stores may generally have different preferences than those who buy their phones directly from Apple or from other types of retailers.
Apple has previously launched multiple distinct iPhone models in quick succession—for example, it released the iPhone SE only a few months before the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in 2016. But the iPhone 7 and iPhone SE landed at different price points for different consumers; the iPhone 8 and iPhone X are both flagship phones configured and priced for high-end users. KGI securities was confident in saying that the iPhone X at a minimum cannibalized iPhone 8 demand, but the firm made that determination by studying how far into the future pre-order shipments became backed up.
It's important to note, though, that backed up pre-orders might not be a reliable indicator of popularity. We've already heard that supply would likely be an issue with the iPhone X, as Apple reportedly encountered part bottlenecks and other challenges when manufacturing the device. We just don't know how many units were produced of either phone; it's possible that the phones have seen similar demand or that the iPhone X has seen less. In that case, the iPhone X's pre-orders could be backed up because Apple manufactured far fewer units of that phone, not because consumers were more excited about it.
We can't conclusively say that the iPhone X is more attractive to buyers than the iPhone 8. When reviewing the iPhone 8, Ars was impressed by its computing power and internals, but we found aspects of the phone's design to be outdated and unambitious. Some consumers nevertheless found value in the iPhone 8, but clearly some withheld their wallets in anticipation of the iPhone X.
Just don't jump to any conclusions about which one resonated more. We don't have the necessary information yet. We might learn more in Apple's November 2 earnings call, though.
For those of you who can’t wait to get your hands on an iPhone X, here are some photos from when we got our hands on it.
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The back surface is glass and looks more like other iPhones you've seen.
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The Messages app has been augmented with a number of features that use the front-facing, 3D camera—including animojis.
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The volume buttons are still there.
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Yes, that's a lightning cable on the bottom—and no headphone jack.
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The display dominates the iPhone X.
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Web browsing in portrait mode gives you more text on the screen at once than previous iPhones.
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The advantages of the wider screen are less noticeable when browsing the Web in landscape mode.
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The Portrait Lighting feature felt more sci-fi than anything else we tried out.
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16:9 video content crops at the edges, but because the OLED shows true blacks, it just looks like there's a bezel.
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HDR is amazing, but it won't come through in these photos.
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The iPhone X is completely black on the front, and those blacks are the same even when it's on if there's nothing to show in that pixel.
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Samuel Axon
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