At 2:00 a.m. Beijing time on March 9, Apple launched 6 new products in succession at the nearly 1-hour spring 2022 new product conference; iPhone SE III, iPhone 13/13 Pro Cangling Green Version, iPad Air, M1 Ultra chip, Mac Studio, and Studio Display.
Apple's AR glasses, which have been rumored to be expected to be released in 2022, did not appear in Apple CEO Cook's speech. At the 2021 fourth quarter earnings call at the end of January, Cook confirmed that Apple is indeed interested in developing AR-related technologies, sees "great potential" in this area, and is making "corresponding investments". Perhaps as Predicted by Guo Mingxi, an analyst at Tianfeng International Securities, we can only wait until the end of this year to see the true appearance of Apple's AR glasses.
The iPhone SE series, which was updated again after a gap of 2 years, has become one of the focuses of attention from the outside world. The third generation of iPhone SE continues to follow the iPhone 8 design, retaining the physical Home button, and the advantage is that at a price of 3000 yuan, it can enjoy the performance experience of A15 chip + iOS 15 system comparable to the latest flagship iPhone 13, and support 5G network connection.
But the shortcomings of the third generation of the iPhone SE are also obvious: the full-screen design of the expected shell iPhone X has failed, the 4.7-inch screen is a bit insufficient, and the battery is a bit unsurable. If you look at the perspective of the 2022 iPhone 8, the starting price of the third generation of the iPhone SE is 3499 yuan, which is enough to match the domestic flagship, which is really not cost-effective.
Since the launch of this "most affordable iPhone product" in Cook's mouth, since its launch in 2016, the crowd it wants to conquer is not the traditional iPhone users with strong consumption power and the pursuit of the latest design, but hopes to attract those who swing between Apple and Android, and finally forced to fall to Android by the budget, which is what Cook calls "users who want to experience the iPhone for the first time".
These potential users are the "five rings" of consumers outside the Apple iPhone to conquer. Huang Zheng, the founder of Pinduoduo, said in an interview with the media in April 2018 that only people within the fifth ring road of Beijing would say that the rise of Pinduoduo is to seize the sinking crowd brought about by the third wave of the demographic dividend of the mobile Internet, but we are concerned about the consumption upgrade desire of the vastst number of ordinary people in China.
For Cook, who has products all over the world, Apple naturally wants to meet the consumption upgrade aspirations of users outside China's fifth ring road. Once the iPhone SE conquers a new territory in the sinking market around the world, Apple will be able to use its user scale to generate more long-term service revenue.
But Cook's wishful thinking has recently ushered in new challenges. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted 21 to 1 in February to approve the Open Market Act, which would force Apple to allow users to install apps from outside the App Store.
Once the bill is finally implemented, not only will Apple's advantages in differentiating Android's software and hardware collaborative ecological experience will be lost, but also the nearly 100 billion US dollars of annual revenue generated by Apple taxes will also be greatly reduced.
A
How many potential people outside the "five rings" can the third generation of iPhone SE conquer? Foreign media have predicted that after the release of the third generation of iPhone SE, it will boost Apple's mobile phone sales by at least 10%. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives gave clear data in a report to investors: the first year of the iPhone SE three generation shipments are expected to exceed 30 million units.
As the cheapest iPhone in Apple's series on sale, the price of the iPhone SE version of the National Bank of China has been maintained at the price range of 3,000 yuan - 3,500 yuan, and this range is also the most fierce price range for domestic high-end mobile phones, and it is also the main consumer price segment of the Chinese mobile phone market.
Judging from the performance of the first two generations of iPhone SE, the iPhone SE generation launched in March 2016 has accumulated total sales of 30 million units, and the second generation of iPhone SE launched in April 2020 has accumulated total sales of 24.2 million units. Although there is still a lot of distance from the sales of the iPhone digital series in the same period, the sales volume of more than 10 million is still a considerable number that needs to be caught up for Android models that anchor the price range of more than 3,000 yuan.
According to the 2020 global smartphone sales list released by market research agency GfK, the second generation of the iPhone SE ranked second with 24.2 million units sold, and the first was 64.8 million units of the iPhone 11. The overall Android camp models in the top 10 models account for only 5 models, and the average price of these 5 models is only about 1,000 yuan.
The iPhone SE did serve cook's intended goal. The data shows that in the second quarter of 2020 after the launch of the second generation of iPhone SE, iPhone SE sales accounted for nearly one-fifth of the iPhone series, of which 26% of users switched from Android devices.
In a survey of the reasons for the iPhone SE replacement initiated by GfK, nearly 58% of users checked the "Apple good ecological experience" option.
Especially for users who have experienced the use of Android mobile phones, the desire to change the machine of Apple's ecological experience may be stronger. In the article "The old man's mobile phone has "pop-up window cancer"", through interviews with some users, it is easy for some elderly Android owners to inadvertently download a lot of messy garbage APP, and then there is an endless pop-up window advertisement, resulting in the mobile phone finally stuck to be unable to use normally.
B
However, Apple's ecological experience advantage is now at risk of being weakened.
On February 3, local time, the US Senate Judiciary Committee deliberated and passed the Open Market Act, requiring Apple to allow users to bypass the App Store to install third-party applications and use third-party payment tools.
Previously, Apple executives, including Cook, explained and defended to members of Congress on the grounds that open software sideloading would bring unforeseen information security risks to iPhone user behavior. Since Jobs released the App Store, Apple has been auditing and controlling all the software downloaded and installed by users through the software application store to ensure the security of users and the goodness of the ecological experience.
Based on these efforts, Apple introduced a 30% "Apple tax" for developers.
After the "Open Market Act" was passed, Apple sent a letter of defense to a house of lawmakers, including The Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin, etc., writing that most of the malware obtained control of the user's device, relying not on technical means, but on doing everything possible to trick users into downloading and installing malware, and said that there is currently a lot of evidence to prove that on some platforms that support third-party software stores (not apple and Google's official stores), Third-party stores have become an important channel for malware distribution.
In addition to the policy regulation in the United States, Apple has been fined 30 million euros (about $32.68 million) in the Netherlands for the App Store problem, which was due to Apple's lack of sincerity in rectifying the App Store and its unwillingness to comply with the Dutch Consumer and Market Authority's (ACM) decision to let go of the App Store's third-party payments.
Outside the Netherlands, South Korea, the European Union, India, Australia, etc. are also considering market supervision of Apple's App Store.
The reason for Apple's reluctance to open up sideload and third-party payments, in addition to what the official says is for the security of user information, more importantly, software services have become the second growth curve outside of hardware such as iPhones. As of the fourth quarter of last year, Apple had more than 745 million paid subscribers. Wedbush even offered a $1.5 trillion growth valuation for Apple's services business.
The only thing cooks to celebrate at the moment may be that the US Open Market Act still needs to wait for the signing of both houses of Congress and the president before it can become a formal law, and in the past antitrust investigations against technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc., none of the new bills have finally changed into law so far.
At the end of the press conference, Cook concluded the live broadcast with a summary statement that "the close coordination of software and hardware makes only us have this unique experience". However, in the face of global regulatory pressure, I don't know how long Apple's advantage can be maintained.