Why Apple will no longer report iPhone sales

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Apple is becoming less transparent.

Apple announced on Thursday during its most recent earnings call that it will for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, or any of its hardware products during its quarterly reports.

The Cupertino-based tech giant once touted its sales figures for its array of tremendously popular, as well as extremely profitable, products — especially the iPhone. However, starting with the next quarter (Q1 2019), Apple will no longer share how many units are sold. 

The reason: Apple is looking to take more control of its own narrative.

In the case of the iPhone, the smartphone market has changed since Apple sold 230 million iPhones in 2015. Overall, sales numbers of the iPhone have plateaued as Apple has reached or passed the saturation point in many markets.

Yet, as iPhone sales remain stagnant, Apple announced a 20 percent increase in revenue compared to this time last year. The company, the first ever to be worth $1 trillion, has slowly but steadily been for all of its products. This enables Apple to continue raking in money hand over fist, while the actual number of Apple products sold decreases.

If Apple continues to report falling iPhone unit sales numbers every quarter, all the while delivering on revenue growth, anyone covering Apple will need to point out time and again that product sales are down, regardless of what the actual finances are. So why take the PR hit on sales numbers when you can just not release them?

For what it’s worth, Apple’s take is that “services,” such as App Store downloads, are now a far better indicator of how the company is doing. Simply put, the company says there are so many existing iPhone users that how much they’re purchasing for their phone is now more important than how many new iPhones the company sells.

That argument is actually pretty solid. If Apple can continue to sell services to the large base of users already who already own an iPhone, it has a decent path to sustainable growth outside of simply making more expensive products. Of course, the fact that Apple is no longer confident enough in the strength of that narrative to break out sales numbers might tell you something, too.

But no matter how you look at it, Apple is being less transparent. And for anyone literally or figuratively invested in the company, it’s hard to see that as good news.