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I mean sure 'Stagnant' means that there was no growth, but it also implies that this is a bad thing, which in this case it obviously isn't. Clickbait title.
by hacker_9 8y ago
I mean sure 'Stagnant' means that there was no growth, but it also implies that this is a bad thing, which in this case it obviously isn't. Clickbait title.
- cm2187 8y agoHow high do you think they can go in term of prices? And do you think they will sell many £1000 smartphones in a recession? Stagnant volumes is not an imminent problem but the share price is a forward looking metric.
- alexis_fr 8y agoA $600 mass phone in 2007 was difficult to imagine. And 2008 was the recession.
- cm2187 8y agoYeah, but that's the point of the market saturation. Apple (or Google for ads) achieved a phenomenal growth despite the recession because they were taking over a market. But now that the market is saturated, there won't be a growth in volume to offset difficult economic conditions.
- pdpi 8y agoI’d argue that £1000 phones are less affected by a recession than £400 phones
- cm2187 8y agoI think that classifies them as luxury products, which historically tend to be pro-cyclical.
- ForHackernews 8y agoiPhones might be a Veblen good. They could probably release a $5000 or $10,000 model and there would be a market for it. Plenty of people buy $50,000 watches.
- zelos 8y agoDidn't Apple stop making the super expensive Apple watch, though?
- ForHackernews 8y agoThe Apple watch is a low-status dorky, uncool watch. The iPhone is a cool, high-status phone.
- joejerryronnie 8y agoPatek Philippe or nothing!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- trosi 8y agoSo it's a good thing that unit sales haven't risen?
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoWhat word would you have used instead? "Stagnant" is technically accurate.
- RickS 8y agoI don't have a dog in this fight re: spin, just playing the word game. "consistent" for a positive spin or "steady" for more neutral. "Flat" is fairly uncharitable but also on the table. For example, I suspect one's wife would rather know her beauty has been "consistent" over the years, rather than "stagnant", despite technically both meaning "stayed the same".
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoYep, the wives of the HN userbase and their ongoing obsession with maintaining their beauty. :eye roll:
- TheAdamAndChe 8y agoAre you saying people(wives included) shouldn't care about their beauty? This seems like a completely unnecessary response to the comment.
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoNo, I’m pointing out that it’s a weird sexist comment that sounds like something from a scene of Mad Men.
- RickS 8y agoI would assert that the genders could be reversed, say, for a husband's handsomeness, or any other quality in any person, and the metric would apply. And of course persons could be removed altogether – that's the point – we started out talking about cell phones. The purpose of my anecdote, and the reason I chose something with such sentiment, is to highlight the semantic difference between words by placing them in a more emotionally charged context. One likely doesn't think too hard about the praise they bestow upon their iPhone. One hopefully thinks harder about the praise they send their lover. The heightened importance of word choice in situation B makes it easier to understand situation A. If degrading sexist tropes are your mind's first destination in in the context of this conversation, I believe you are a hammer in search of a nail.
- minikites 8y agoCapitalism requires growth (or more generally, increased consumption of products/resources), so stagnation is bad by definition.
- coldtea 8y agoOr capitalism is bad for requiring it (externalities be damned)
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoDoes it? There are plenty of companies with lower growth that still produce regular profits and dividends.
- minikites 8y ago>lower growth How many healthy/successful companies out there have _no_ growth? That's my point.
- Theodores 8y agoThe real story is that from now on Apple will not be reporting unit sales for their products. Next quarter and from there on there will be just the aggregated sales figure for how much physical stuff they sold with nobody knowing whether that was phones, watches, laptops or dongles. This is their choice and their business. I don't think this is fair on the people that have helped them get to where they are by writing apps, making accessories or even writing web pages that look good on Safari. Why would a company invest in making accessories for the iPad if they have no clue as to whether the things are selling or not? How do you make the business case to invest in such accessories if you only have anecdotal evidence as to whether the iPad is selling or not?
- bunnycorn 8y agoThird party data. There isn't also official sales data for Android and Windows devices.
- GeekyBear 8y agoMeanwhile, Google does not reveal their unit sales or even their revenue for the various Pixel devices. >unlike most hardware manufacturers, Google refuses to share official sales numbers for their phone. Instead, during earning reports they simply bundle the product under Alphabet's "Other Revenues", leaving us in the dark about how successful the product is. https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/rare-moment-pixels-sales-figures-are-revealed-0178148/ https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/rare-moment-pixels-sale...
- fouc 8y agoGood point. The "stagnant" term is considered to be a very negative concept in capitalism.