Li Nan is not optimistic about Apple's market prospects in 2020: sales continue to decline

The iPhone 11 was released this month. Despite its impressive sales, Li Nan, former senior vice president of Meizu, is still pessimistic about Apple's market prospects in 2020.

Li Nan predicted in a Zhihu article that the sales of this generation of iPhone 11 will continue to shrink by about 15% compared with the previous generation. (If iOS 13.1 does not solve the heating problem and the signal is not improved compared with the previous generation, it is possible that the gap will continue to widen)

The main reason is that the decline in product innovation has made it more difficult to gain market share. If we consider the possibility of a decline in profit margins, it will indeed be more difficult than before.

Another reason is that the global economic environment is not optimistic. Considering the increasing risks in the operation of the global economy, the sales of such high-priced products will be hit first. Unlike in the past, today's mobile phone upgrades have reached the stage of diminishing marginal utility. New machines are of course better, but the old ones are not a big problem in terms of quality, experience and speed.

The data shows that the replacement cycle is getting longer and longer, and it is now close to two years overall, while Apple's data is even worse, close to three years. This data can also better confirm the fact that Apple's product innovation ability has weakened in recent years.

Of course, there are also factors that stimulate the growth of Apple's iPhone sales. Li Nan believes there are two:

1. Apple’s own attack on the low price will be more aggressive. The iPhone 11 may not be the successor to the iPhone XR. A cheaper iPhone will be released.

2. If the problems between China and the United States are not resolved quickly, Huawei will lose tens of millions of shares overseas, and most of these users will fall into the pockets of Apple and Samsung.

Judging from Li Nan’s analysis, he is pessimistic about Apple’s market prospects in 2020.