Funny, when you come to think of it. Looks like Nikkei was the only one who didn't see Apple's latest quarterly results then. They completely ignored the mind blowing iPhone X sales (specially for *that* price), they ignored the fact that Apple, as the only company worldwide, would resist the global trend of less mobile phones sold. Guess now we know what source to ignore from now on 😉

Try lowering the damn prices.

Is this how the OLED GPU backplate trend begins?

I wonder how much memory has gone to waste on these same unsold phones?

It's interesting...how high does the cost of living need to be globally before people stop buying a new smartphone every year? 75%? 95%? 150%? Some might think reading your social media updates were addictive...

Loobyluggs:

It's interesting...how high does the cost of living need to be globally before people stop buying a new smartphone every year? 75%? 95%? 150%? Some might think reading your social media updates were addictive...

Not everyone, for that matter i'd say most people do not get a new cellphone every year. Only the people obsessed with having the latest and greatest phones do. Most people wait 2-6 years before upgrading. Having worked for a company that sold phones, i can tell you likely 95% of people i dealt with had 2+ year old phones, or a cheap $50 "smart phone" that was 2 years or newer, and very rarely did we deal with people who had last years flagship of any brand. Ironically enough, most of the time we did deal with new phones as a trade it, it was current flagship to different company current flagship because they didn't like the brand new $600-1000 phone they had gotten

My phone was 200$ and did come with: Amoled, good enough perf. and like 1 week of battery IDLE and 6 hours of hard fun... why Apple - the worlds most expensive company can`t beat that ? why are they IDLE at any lower shelf ? Samsung is going for Galaxy S9 while selling many other good models - its just the matter of time when they outperform any Apple phone or their products for that matter.

Prince Valiant:

I wonder how much memory has gone to waste on these same unsold phones?

Shouldn't be that much wasted directly, as the unsold phones presumably never have been manufactured. That's why Samsung has a surplus of OLED screens. But the factories making memory for un-manufactured phones could also have been used for making GPU memory... So yeah, it's still a waste 😉

Loobyluggs:

It's interesting...how high does the cost of living need to be globally before people stop buying a new smartphone every year? 75%? 95%? 150%? Some might think reading your social media updates were addictive...

As long as carriers continue to subsidize high end cell phones within their contracts people will continue to "buy" them every 2 or 3 years. But if carriers stop this kind of deals, then high end phone sales are going to tank overnight...

people buy up Apple phones like there candy,ever been to AT&T/ SPRINT/ETC mobile stores, they empty compared to every Apple Store I ever seen no matter the day or time those Apple stores are packed, my dad used the excuse I needed a "phone" to go buy the iPhoneX and 2nd iWatch.... the iPhone X ironically was replaced 3 times and 2 month. Apple is still going to bank with iPhone even if they replacing things alot., I be surpised if it cost them 1/3 the price they charging for one phone to make 1 phone. Maybe Samsung was expect the iPhone X to sell even more then actual did consider it price.

H83:

As long as carriers continue to subsidize high end cell phones within their contracts people will continue to "buy" them every 2 or 3 years. But if carriers stop this kind of deals, then high end phone sales are going to tank overnight...

Which companies in the US are still subsidizing phones?

sykozis:

Which companies in the US are still subsidizing phones?

Honestly, from my experience, mostly, companies were never "subsidizing", they were: Before: Sign up for a 2 year contract that'll add a certain amount per phone extra to your 2 year contract and after the contract is up it'll decrease to the "no-contract" prices. (People mostly didn't realize they were paying for the phone, or even realize the "contract" monthly charge was more expensive then the no-contract plans, because mostly that was never advertised, what was advertised and told to them was that their monthly bill would be (insert number here) and you get this "free" phone since the additional contract charge was not "technically" a payment on the phone, and then you can upgrade, again, for "free", in 2 years, and your phone bill never changes, since you're always on a 2 year contract) Now: No contract, no money up front for your phone(sometimes not, sometimes a certain amount up front), pay off your phone with a flat monthly bill, and in 2 years you'll have paid off the phone and you phone bill will decrease. (People, again, mostly don't even pay attention to the fact they are paying off the phone, they only care that they got the brand new flag-ship phone and to them are not putting out a chunk of change to get it, all they see is "free phone, here's your high monthly bill")

These OLEDs would make for a great VR headset. Imagine the FOV with one of these per eye! Come on Samsung...make some competition for the HTC

Aura89:

Honestly, from my experience, mostly, companies were never "subsidizing", they were: Before: Sign up for a 2 year contract that'll add a certain amount per phone extra to your 2 year contract and after the contract is up it'll decrease to the "no-contract" prices. (People mostly didn't realize they were paying for the phone, or even realize the "contract" monthly charge was more expensive then the no-contract plans, because mostly that was never advertised, what was advertised and told to them was that their monthly bill would be (insert number here) and you get this "free" phone since the additional contract charge was not "technically" a payment on the phone, and then you can upgrade, again, for "free", in 2 years, and your phone bill never changes, since you're always on a 2 year contract) Now: No contract, no money up front for your phone(sometimes not, sometimes a certain amount up front), pay off your phone with a flat monthly bill, and in 2 years you'll have paid off the phone and you phone bill will decrease. (People, again, mostly don't even pay attention to the fact they are paying off the phone, they only care that they got the brand new flag-ship phone and to them are not putting out a chunk of change to get it, all they see is "free phone, here's your high monthly bill")

When I got my first cellphone, it was through Alltel (who was purchased by Verizon Wireless). At the time, when setting up new service, you got a "free" phone with a 2 year contract. That contract included X number of minutes (at the time, they ranged from 60 minutes a month to around 6000 minutes a month in my area). After 2 years, you could either extend the contract (and get a new phone if you wanted) or you could let the contract expire and pay per minute for every phone call + monthly service fee. Those were the only options. The cost of the phones was actually built into the cost of the service plan. BUT, whether you choose to get a new phone every 2 years or not, you still paid the same amount. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile used this same model until around 2013 when T-Mobile started "financing" phones. In recent years, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have joined T-Mobile. Funny part is, cost of service hasn't actually gone down.