Will Apple focus more on lower priced devices after the success of the iPhone XR?

The iPhone XR recently became the most dominant recent iPhone model in terms of sales. 48 per cent of the sales came from the US. The figures are the highest since the iPhone 6.

One of the main reasons for this is that even with the absence of a budget or mid-range device, Apple has been pushing heavy discounts on the iPhone XR to push the price towards that space. In return, the iPhone XR sales numbers speak for themselves.

The message from consumers to Apple is loud and clear here. People want iPhones that offer better value for money. If an iPhone hits the market within the USD 500 category, its sells in large numbers.

This is a message that Apple hasn’t paid much attention to in the past. But considering their numbers, which are falling day by day, now is a good time to change strategies. Now the company is stuck between two ways to take forward their approach.

The first is to continue paying more attention to and putting in more resources into the premium market, even if it means getting lower numbers in return. The company will then have to rely on software and services for revenue a little more heavily, with service like Apple Games and Apple Music.

The second is to first build a larger user-base for a few years by maybe focusing on high value devices which are moderately priced, and then move on to the Premium devices plan, which will ensure at least a large user-base to pay for the software based services.

Tim Cook and team will be forced to choose one of the two approaches in the near future, unless the find a third way to tackle the depleting sale levels. Whether Apple will do something about it before its too late remains to be seen.