iPhone盛世即將終結了嗎?

When Steve Jobs died in 2011, iPhone sales were still doubling year on year. It is a safe bet that his successor, Tim Cook, is going to preside over the end of continuous growth. In quarterly earnings in two weeks, analysts still expect Apple to have sold 1m or more phones than the 74.5m it achieved in the same quarter last year, with Chinese demand crucial. If it turns out that Apple has sold fewer, it will be a blow to the credibility of Mr Cook, who primed the market to expect growth. But the timing hardly matters. If it is not coming this quarter, the decline is priced in for the next one.

2011年史蒂夫吠布斯(Steve Jobs)去世的時候，iPhone銷量還在翻番地增長。幾乎可以肯定，他的繼任者蒂姆錠克(Tim Cook)將在任期內眼看着這股持續增長勢頭終結。蘋果將於兩週內發佈季度財報，分析師們仍預期iPhone銷量將比去年同期的7450萬部增加100萬部以上，其中中國的需求是關鍵。如果銷量下滑，將對庫克本人的信譽造成打擊，因爲他事先放出的風聲讓市場認爲增長可期。但時間點並不重要，如果這個季度銷量沒有下滑，投資者也預期下個季度就會下滑。

So what? For all its “fanboy” customers, Apple has some Jeremiah shareholders. Since it reported the most profitable quarter in corporate history 12 months ago, its shares have fallen 15 per cent. Yet the stock trades at just 10 times forward earnings. Strip out the massive cash pile and it trades at less than 8 times. Investors know that the end of rampant growth is nigh.

所以呢？儘管果粉衆多，一些股東卻抱着悲觀態度。自12個月前報告公司史上最盈利的季度業績以來，蘋果股價下跌了15%。然而該公司股票的市盈率僅爲10倍。如果不算大量的現金儲備，市盈率還不到8倍。投資者知道，迅猛的增長快要結束了。

Having risen to well over 50 per cent of group revenues, of course the iPhone matters. But maturity does not mean extinction, and just because Apple has become a phone company does not mean that it is all it ever will be.

iPhone對集團營收的貢獻已經遠高於50%，當然十分重要。但成熟並不意味着一定會走向消亡，僅僅因爲蘋果成了一家手機公司也並不意味着它將永遠只是一家手機公司。

The important metric for measuring iPhone success over the next couple of years is not how many iPhones are sold in a particular quarter — but how long those phones last. Apple hopes that more consumers will switch to its new upgrade programme, which incentivises them to buy a device every 12 months. Part of the bull case outlined by Mr Cook three months ago was the relatively small number of iPhone users who had upgraded to the iPhone 6 — fewer than 35 per cent.

在接下來幾年，衡量iPhone是否成功，關鍵不是看某個季度賣出了多少部iPhone，而要看手機換代的時間。蘋果希望更多消費者升級其新程序，這將激勵他們每12個月買一部手機。3個月前，庫克概述了看好蘋果的理由，其中之一是升級到iPhone 6的iPhone用戶比例相對較小，不到35%。

That cuts both ways, though. A recent survey by Accenture found that the proportion of consumers who expected to buy a smartphone in the next 12 months had fallen to 48 per cent from 54 per cent last year; the drop was particularly severe in China. Another survey by Mizuho found that 81 per cent of iPhone users expected to hang on to their next device for longer, an estimated 27 months compared with 20 months. The iPhone 5 has demonstrated more staying power than previous versions of the device; it has not yet been rendered obsolete by more processing power or killer features from subsequent iterations. In Apple’s sales pitch to worrywart shareholders, that is the wrong sort of iPhone endurance.

不過，此事有利有弊。埃森哲(Accenture)最近的一項調查發現，打算在接下來12個月內購買一部智能手機的消費者比例從去年的54%降至48%；在中國下滑得更厲害。瑞穗銀行(Mizuho)的另一項調查發現，81%的iPhone用戶預計下一部手機會使用更長時間，估計比目前所用手機的20個月多7個月。iPhone 5比前幾代產品更爲經久不衰；之後的產品更強的處理能力或者殺手級特色功能都未能淘汰iPhone 5。在蘋果對憂心忡忡的股東的宣傳中，iPhone的這種耐久可不是好事。