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iPhone 6s is really bad news for carriers
Sep 11, 2015
As usual, Apple's September 2015 keynote was perfectly staged and drew a crowd of tech journalists to San Francisco. Among all the noise around the giant iPad Pro, a finally revamped Apple TV and the potentially game changing 3D Touch of iPhone 6s, it was easy to miss the big news that was hidden in side comments.
iPhone is growing faster than the industry and even grabbing market share in the huge but shrinking Chinese market. It appears that Apple is the only company in the world making money with smart phones. In the very same week that Apple launched iPhone 6s, Samsung announced to lay off 10,000 people in its headquarters and Amazon decided to stop selling its Fire Phone. Long celebrated Xiaomi has been very silent recently. To complete the picture, Apple is introducing an app that makes it easier to transfer Android users to iPhone. These trends alone will further increase Apple's bargaining power with carriers but there is more.
Since the launch of iPhone, Apple has gradually eroded the business model of carriers. Before, they used to "own" customers and sold somewhat innovative content like new ring tones to them. With the introduction of smartphones, carriers have been reduced to bit pipes while Apple, Google and others are selling content directly to customers. The carriers tried to hang on with subscription models in which a monthly charge covers basic voice and data traffic and gets the customer a new SIM locked device every other year.
With the introduction of the iPhone Upgrade Program on September 9, Apple is severing this last hook the carriers still have on their customers. For $32 a month, you get a new unlocked iPhone every year and this revenue stream goes to Apple, bypassing the carriers completely. With this brilliant move, Apple also cleans the pipeline for customers who are intrigued by a new iPhone but don't know what to do with their current one. You only have so many family members who are happy with a hand down. The returning iPhones are good for Apple too. They can be refurbished and sold to a different customer segment or recycled for parts and materials.
Even more bad news for carriers sit in the SIM trays of iPads. Apple doesn't advertise the pre-installed Apple SIM much but it has huge potential and points to a future that is terrifying for carriers. The Apple SIM conveniently allows customers to pay for their data traffic via iTunes without bothering about the carrier that actually provides the service. Apple has all tools at hand to extend the Apple SIM to iPhone. With that, the relationship between Apple and the carriers would fully reverse. In 2007, Apple started selling iPhones to carriers. In a couple of years we could see carriers selling voice and data services to Apple.
