大批iPhone用戶短期內不會再購新機 蘋果將如何應對

Michael Levin of Consumer Information Research Partners, which on Monday released to the press the attached chart, likes to talk about smartphones in the language of conventional retail.

消費者信息研究夥伴公司的邁克爾o列文週一向媒體公佈了上述圖表。他喜歡使用傳統零售業的語言談論智能手機市場。

“A huge number of people just bought their next iPhone,” he says. “It’s like they went to Costco and stocked up on a shitload of toilet paper.”

他表示：“很多人剛剛購買了新iPhone手機，這就好像他們去了一趟好市多超市，採購了大量衛生紙囤積在家裏一樣。”

In retailing terms, U.S. iPhone buyers “filled the pantry” last quarter, and it’s going to be a long time before they come back for more.

用零售業的術語來說，美國的iPhone用戶上個季度“備足了存貨”，等他們下次再來購買手機，可能要等到很長時間以後了。

How long? Levin doesn’t hazard a guess, but he points to several factors that would tend to slow down the replacement cycle.

這個時間到底有多長？列文沒有進行胡亂猜測，不過他指出了幾個有可能減緩置換週期的因素。

o 72% of iPhone owners have a relatively new phone — less than a year and a half old

o 72%的iPhone用戶的手機相對較新——只購買了不到一年半。

o 86% of the people who activated iPhones last quarter were repeat customers. (Android repeats, at 72%, were close behind)

o 在上個季度激活iPhone的用戶中，86%屬於再次購買iPhone（安卓的再次購買比例緊隨其後，達到72%。）

o 30% of those phones were financed, not subsidized

o 30%的手機採取了貸款方案，而不是補貼模式。

“Apple’s ability to pick off first time buyers or persuade Android owners to switch has diminished greatly,” says Levin. “Loyalty has increased dramatically.”

列文表示：“蘋果吸引首次購買的新用戶或勸說安卓用戶轉換陣營的能力顯著降低了，用戶的忠誠度大幅提高。”

And the growing popularity of financing — buying phones over time, like a car — could make it harder to sell anybody a new phone.

貸款購機，也就是說像買車一樣分期付款購買手機，正變得越來越流行，這或許導致銷售新手機變得更加困難。

“When you are done paying for your car,” says Levin, “you get this sort of ‘ahhh’ feeling, where you can wait for a while before you start buying a new one.”

列文表示：“當你終於還完車貸時，你會有一種‘謝天謝地’的感覺，這時你會稍等一陣子，而不是立刻再買一輛新的。”

It’s the same with phones. “When people finally own their phone they may say to themselves, ‘hey I’ve got this phone and its kind of new so I don’t have pay for another one anymore.'”

買手機也是一樣。“當人們終於擁有了一臺新手機，他們可能會對自己說：‘我成爲這部手機的主人了，它還挺新的，所以我暫時不會再買其它手機了。’”

The two-year subsidy model never made much sense, says Levin, and now it’s going away.

列文表示，爲期兩年的補貼模式其實沒有多大意義，正在逐步退出。

This affects Apple more than Android because Apple’s phones tend to last longer and their customers are more loyal.

這對蘋果的影響要大於安卓，因爲蘋果手機一般使用時間更長，蘋果用戶的忠誠度也更高。

Levin, like a lot of analysts, is looking ahead to the next generation of iPhones and wondering how Apple can keep it up.

像很多其他分析師一樣，列文也在展望下一代iPhone，很想知道蘋果將如何堅持下去。

“For Apple to sell a lot of phones in a year or two,” he says,” they’re going to have to come up with some unbelievable innovation.”

他表示：“蘋果要想在一兩年裏繼續銷售大量iPhone，就必須拿出一些不可思議的創新。”