All the People Who Said No One Would Buy the iPhone X Were Wrong

“No one is going to buy the new iPhone X.”

“Too many people are scared of the privacy issues with Face ID and don’t want to give up Touch ID.”

“It’s too expensive; people will go for the cheaper iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.”

Eh, not quite.

On the Apple earnings call last Tuesday, Tim Cook went over the fact that Apple posted $61.1 billion in the March quarter vs. last year’s $52.9 billion. He mentioned that they were going to do a $100 billion buyback of stocks to give stockholders some dividends. And he discussed that they sold 52.2 million iPhones in that quarter over the 50.7 million last year.

In addition to that, the average cost per iPhone went up to $728 from the $655 last year. A big thanks to the $999 starting price of the iPhone X, for sure.

While analysts were saying the high price of the iPhone X would curb purchases, Tim Cook announced that the iPhone X was the top-selling model every week in the March quarter.

“This is the first cycle that we’ve ever had where the top of the line iPhone model has also been the most popular,” Cook said during the call.

What?! You mean all that hype about how expensive it was, the privacy issues, etc. that everyone was parading around the web as headlines didn’t stop anyone from buying it? Yeah, I’m not surprised.

As I mentioned in my video about why you should by the iPhone X instead of the 8, the price isn’t a concern. In most of Apple’s biggest markets (if not all of them), that price is never really felt by the consumer. In the US, for example, we would never even see that retail price and instead are just presented per monthly costs. And the iPhone X was $8 more a month than the iPhone 8 Plus.

The other more psychological aspect of all this is the fact that you have to understand the mentality of Apple the brand. They are all about being the best. Paying the most attention to detail, using the most premium materials, having the best customer service, and charging a premium for all of this. (You can, of course, argue if they do these things, but regardless that is the brand image they are going for).

And if you believed in that and bought their products because of that, how could you buy an Apple product that isn’t the top of the line. It’s okay when it’s a big gap in price cause you feel like you’re saving money, but when it translates to $8/month, buying an iPhone 8 and having moments where your phone is missing features that someone who purchased the iPhone X has? It’s going to make you feel immediately feel like you don’t have the “best”.

Besides the fact that this shows that users care more about features than price to some degree (at least when monthly payments are concerned) I think this whole thing is going to prove to Apple that the iPhone X form factor is going to be the new one going forward. They won’t want to carry extra supplies for more units most likely (depending on how close those sales figures were to the iPhone X numbers).

So I think it’s probably a good bet that people will need to get used to the notch, no home button, and Face ID just like they did with the missing headphone jack.