Why Cellular Carriers are Apple's Best Friend

This was not a day for Apple fans. Shares of the iPhone maker dipped just over 1% even as the rest of the market rallied, after Bloomberg reported that demand for the new line of iPhones was turning out to be weaker than expected. As a result, Apple won’t make as many devices as anticipated. This is supposedly the result of belt-tightening among consumers globally, at least partly. But as demand is stronger for the iPhone 14 Pro model than for the basic iPhone 14 model, the Bloomberg report said, the decision surely also reflects reviews that suggested the latter was indistinguishable from the iPhone 13. 

One interpretation of the situation is that Apple needs to try harder to give people a reason to buy a new device. No doubt that’s true—but only to a point. The tech giant still sells an amazing number of iPhones every year—it averaged $157 billion in sales of the device annually between 2019 and 2021—despite the fact that the phones change only marginally year to year (and I say this as someone who finds it hard to resist getting the latest model).