iPhone 16 memory "increase the amount without increasing the price" Apple also began to fight for cost performance?

The official account of Beijing Business Daily

2024-04-24 14:39Published on the official account of Beijing Business Daily in Beijing

On April 24th, iPhone 16 related topics were on the hot search, according to the "LeaksApplePro" broke the news, LeaksApplePro in X, that is, the number of fans on Twitter is about 36,200, which broke the news that Apple this yeariPhone 16 Pro starting storage is 256GB, and the price may remain 999 US dollars, and the domestic starting price is 7999 yuan unchanged.

When the price increase of memory is a foregone conclusion, Apple's "increase in volume without price increase" seems to violate the law of the industry, but in the view of the industry, this is just a manifestation of Apple's return to the reality of the market, 1TB mobile phone popularization at the moment, iPhone if you make a fuss about the memory and maintain a high premium, it is bound to further reduce the cost performance, resulting in the loss of potential users, and now Apple, which is declining in shipments, has to make a rational choice.

Why buck the trend

According to market news, the iPad 2024 model also has a new trend, unlike the iPhone 16, the new iPad may improve the performance while the price is also rising, it is reported that the new iPad Air will have a 12.9-inch version, which is the largest size in the history of the series. In terms of price, the 12.9-inch version of the iPad Air will be $200 more expensive, with a starting price of $799, or about 5,750 yuan, which is also the highest in the history of the Air series.

For the iPhone 16, if the news is true, then Apple can be said to buck the trend, because the price of memory chips has been slowly rising since the second half of last year, and it is still climbing.

Samsung plans to raise the price of enterprise-level solid-state storage by 20%-25% in the second quarter of this year on the basis of the previous quarter, and TrendForce released a report pointing out that the NADA Flash contract price is expected to rise by 13%-18% in the second quarter.

However, in the opinion of experts, the market does not need to worry about Apple, because Apple has long earned excess profits on memory capacity. From the perspective of the iPhone's pricing strategy, 256GB is $100 more expensive than 128GB, and 512GB is $200 more expensive than 256GB, that is, every 128GB of capacity added on the iPhone will increase by $100, which has far exceeded the cost price of memory chips.

Liang Zhenpeng, a senior industrial economic observer, told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the excess price is an important source of Apple's high profits and a manifestation of its brand premium, but as the memory market becomes more and more transparent, mobile phone companies have less and less room to make a fuss about memory. In addition, for Apple, the poor sales of the iPhone have also prompted it to give up some of its brand premiums.

The cost performance lags behind peers

Observing the domestic mobile phone market, it is not difficult to see that 1TB mobile phones are becoming more and more popular, and if Apple does not make changes, it may be difficult for consumers to pay.

For example, as early as the beginning of 2023, mid-range mobile phones led by OnePlus Ace Pro took the lead in bringing a 24GB+1TB ultra-large storage version, and subsequent manufacturers such as Redmi, Realme, OPPO, and iQOO have also launched ultra-large storage phones with high cost performance. For example, the 16G+1TB version of the Note 12 Turbo released by Redmi in the second half of 2023 has reached 1999 yuan after the price reduction, which is one of the cheapest 1TB mobile phones at present, and even compared with 12G+512G, it is only 200 yuan.

On the other hand, compared with the starting price, users need to add 5,000 yuan to buy the 1T version, which may not be in line with the tone of the domestic market.

Counterpoint Research data shows that in the first quarter of 2024, Apple's iPhone sales in China fell by 19%, the worst performance of the device in China since 2020. Apple's market share in China's smartphone market slipped to third place from the first place in the same period last year, while Vivo ranked first with a market share of 17.4%, Honor ranked second with a market share of 16.1%, and Huawei ranked fourth with a share of 15.5%.

In the opinion of experts, if the market news is true, although the iPhone 16 has given up the high premium on memory, it is still unclear how many consumers can be saved, after all, for the iPhone, the immediate problem is that it has fallen behind under the wave of AI, and the upcoming release of iOS 18 may be the key battle for Apple.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Tao Feng Wang Zhuli

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