China Smartphone Sales: September 2025 Data
China’s official accounting for smartphone shipments has indicated that September saw shipments up 23.6% m/m and up 10.1% q/q, 12.4% above the 5 year average for the month, with shipments of domestic brands 84.7% of the total.  The 3rd quarter saw shipments of 78.63 million units, up 10.2% q/q and up 0.7% on a cumulative y/y basis.  3Q was 12.0% above the 3rd quarter 5 year average. 
The data indicated that while the month was strong on a m/m basis, the quarter was inline with last year, maintaining the modest two-year recovery in Chinese smartphone shipments but with little or no y/y growth.  We note that expectations for CE products in general for October and November are relatively low as the Chinese ‘New for Old’ consumer product summaries winds down for the year.  Expectations for 2026 are also conservative at this point, given that it is unknown whether CE subsidies will return next year and if not, how much 2026 buying power has already been used up in taking advantage of the 2025 subsidies.
Conclusion
In summary, China’s smartphone shipment data for September and Q3 2025 reveals a solid month-on-month rebound, with volumes well above medium-term historical averages. However, on a year-over-year and cumulative quarterly basis, the market remains essentially flat, reflecting a stabilization phase after two years of modest recovery. With domestic brands comprising almost 85% of shipments, national preference and competitive pricing continue to shape the market landscape. Looking ahead, market sentiment for upcoming months is cautious due to the winding down of the “New for Old” program, and projections for 2026 hinge on potential government intervention and subsidy renewal.

The Smartphone Battery Capacity War: Why mAh is the New Feature Battlefield
The New Rules of Smartphone Competition: Feature Trends vs. Raw Endurance
Smartphone competition is fierce.  There are between 10 and 15 major global smartphone brands but almost 150 regional, local, and niche brands that release at least one model each year..  Samsung’s overall marketing department has  over 23,000 employees and with smartphones being a major Samsung product, a large chunk of the company’s ~$10 billion advertising budget goes toward smartphones..  Apple (AAPL) has a smaller marketing department and a smaller number of products but still spends between $2b and $2.5 billion on advertising each year, so smaller brands compete by offering consumers features.  Over the years there have been ‘feature trends’ such a larger screens, multiple cameras, and most recently AI, but there is another more subtle ‘feature battle’ brewing that actually benefits consumers.
Smartphones are marvelous devices.  They allow us to communicate with almost anyone on the planet, they give us the opportunity to capture life in pictures, and they allow us to perform dozens of tasks that only a few years ago would require sitting in front of a computer monitor.  Of course there is a downside, a serious reduction in face-to-face interaction and a more couch potato society, but they have become an indispensable part of daily life. Mobile phones have one big limitation, they operate on batteries which have a limited operating period before they need to be recharged.  Just as lager screens on smartphones hit a wall (pocket size) at a bit over 6”, batteries are constrained by the size of the device and must compete for internal real estate with a wide variety of other components,  Battery technology continues to improve but what good is even the best smartphone when the battery is at 2%.
Battery Capacity Trends: Matching mAh to the Needs of AI and TBC
 Over the years, battery engineers have battled with circuit desiner5s to match the needs of smartphone hardware to battery capacity to keep consumers from having to charge their phones in the middle of a workday or at a special event. Now that battery technology is improving, battery size, measured in mAh continues to grow and seems to be the next ‘feature battlefield’ for smartphone brands.  Some of that battery competition is not competition at all, but a necessity as Ai applications are a new source of power draw that must be accounted for  in order to maintain TBC (Time Before Charge).  But on top of that there seems to be a bit of one-upmanship between brands that exceeds raw power needs.  Here is how batteries have grown over the years using two high-end smartphones as examples:

Aggressive Capacity Growth: Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Google Pixel Trends
 
Understandably both battery capacity and TBC are increasing, but when we start to look outside of these two very well known brands and models, things become more obvious.  Here is a similar comparison between One Plus (pvt) Google (GOOG) Pixel, and Xiaomi (1810.HK):
​

​The Next Frontier: Will 10,000 mAh Phone Batteries Reset the Industry Standard?
But here is the kicker.  Honor (pvt) has under development a phone with a battery capacity of 10,000 mAh.  The company has confirmed one model and has been rumored to be working on a second.  This would be a substantial increase over the current model (7,500) and an even larger increase over the competition, leading one to believe that the war has begun and Chinese brands are leading the battery charge.  One Plus has a similar project under development, although the timing looks to be greater than one year for such a release.
Conclusion – The New Feature Battlefield is Endurance
The detailed comparison of battery capacity (mAh) and Time Before Charge (TBC) across major smartphone brands confirms a critical shift in the competitive landscape: the battle for device differentiation has moved from aesthetics and camera resolution to raw endurance. While market leaders like Apple and Samsung exhibit incremental, calculated growth in capacity (driven primarily by compensating for new power draws like AI features), challenger brands, particularly those from China like OnePlus and Xiaomi, are clearly engaging in a competitive "one-upmanship."
This analysis shows that the necessity of powering complex AI processes is merging with an aggressive market strategy, culminating in unprecedented capacity targets like Honor’s rumored 10,000 mAh phone battery. This movement by challengers to drastically increase mAh and TBC is not merely a feature trend; it is a fundamental disruption aimed at carving out market share by solving the user's single greatest pain point: battery anxiety. As AI integration accelerates, consumer expectations for all-day and multi-day battery life will solidify, ensuring that Time Before Charge becomes the next definitive benchmark of flagship quality. Brands that fail to aggressively pursue superior battery solutions risk being left behind in this new era of mobile endurance.
 

Paying the Piper
Smartphone Price Inflation Analysis 2024–2025: Apple iPhone vs. Samsung Galaxy BOM Cost Study
Consumer Electronics Inflation Concerns and US Tariff Impact
Inflation is a touchy subject when speaking with consumers, who often believe flagship smartphone brands use it to justify price increases. To investigate the true impact of component cost inflation, we analyzed the Bill of Materials (BOM) for the 2025 Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, two top-tier devices.  In a year when the potential exists for US tariffs to add additional costs to many consumer goods, we chose two high profile smartphones to see if we could isolate the effects inflation and component price volatility has had on these phones, particularly the significant NAND Flash and DRAM price increase seen this year.

The two phones we chose are Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone Pro Max (Model 15 & 16) and the Samsung (005930.KS) Galaxy Ultra S Series (Model S24 & S25), both representing line top tier of their respective product lines and highly popular across the globe, especially in the US market.
Both iPhone models have a 6.9” LTPO OLED display (brightness improved on the iPhone 17 Pro Max), while the Samsung S24 has a slightly smaller (6.8”) LTPO OLED display as opposed to the  6.9” LTPO OLED display of the S25 Ultra, and while it is difficult to track the absolute pricing of these specific displays, we can track the aggregate price of OLED displays in that category, as shown in  Figure 4.  We note that the price of the OLED displays indicated in the chart declined by 18.8% YTD.  Memory prices (DDR4) have moved in the opposite direction, increasing between 188.0% and 454.2% depending on the type used.  We estimate that the average smartphone uses between 8GB and 12 GB internal RAM (DRAM) and between 256GB and 1 TB of NAND Flash storage, with NAND increasing in price between 38.6% and 61.3% YTD.
These are just two of the many components in these particular smartphones, so we focus on total BOM for each as a way to understand how inflation has changed the smartphone flagship margin picture this year.  We note that in the BOM comparisons there are a number of components that have been upgraded which, in some cases, means an increase in price related to the feature set and not the cost of a comparable component.  The example would be Samsung’s upgrade of the Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Elite SoC which pushes that component’s cost up by ~21%.

Full component BOMs are hard to come by as they tend to be proprietary, but we can look at the composite BOMs totals and selected components.   We note that the detail on the BOMs are not always the same so we use the delta of the change when necessary

​Manufacturer Margin Absorption and US Carrier Pricing Dynamics
Based on the increases seen in Apple’s 2025 BOM, we estimate that margins on the Pro Max declined by between 2.0% and 2.5% and given that the selling price remained the same, Apple absorbed the reduction.  Samsung was less transparent but with a BOM increase of less than half that of Apple, we expect that translated to a 1% margin reduction, which Samsung also absorbed, but the trail does not end there.
Apple sells ~37% of iPhones directly to consumers through Apple stores and Apple.com with the remainder through indirect channels like 3rd party retailers, carriers, and distributors (In the US ~75% of sales go through carriers).  When they sell direct, the margin is ~60% (excludes cost of maintaining stores and on-line presence).  We estimate that when Apple sells to distributors the margin is ~54%, with the distributors marking up by ~5% when they sell to retailers.  Carriers and retailers mark up another 10% to 12% to reach the $1,199 price, although because of the high volumes associated with flagship products, carriers and retailers are often willing to take lower markups.  Samsung’s system is similar although they rely more heavily on carriers for distribution globally.
Typically Apple sets a wholesale and retail price for each model which locks in distributor and retail margins.  Apple does not allow partners to change their ‘buy’ price, so BOM increases without a corresponding price (MSRP) increase leave Apple to absorb the increase, especially as agreements on buy-in prices with partners are made in advance of the product launch.  There are no mechanisms for changing those prices for BOM or specific component price increases, but Apple can indicate far in advance that the buy-in or MSRPO price for the next generation iPhone will increase.  Apple does occasionally offer channel partners incentives to stimulate sales in the form of marketing support and specific product promotions, but those costs come out of Apple’s margin, as Apple is known to protect partners with very stable pricing regardless of the circumstances.
Samsung also sets buy-in and MSRP, especially for South Korea and the US but is a bit more flexible in other countries, especially around mid-cycle.  Samsung is a bit more aggressive when it comes to promotions for resellers and makes adjustments to promotion levels, marketing rebates, and buy-back incentives to balance increases in BOM.  However they never directly shift manufacturing cost increases to partners.
Conclusion: BOM Inflation Adds Complexity to Smartphone Design
Ultimately BOM cost inflation is absorbed by smartphone manufacturers throughout much, if not all, of the product’s first year selling cycle, particularly in the US where carriers and retailers want to make sure they have a steady margin.  This makes pre-assembly component cost negotiations even more critical, especially when competitive pressures leave little room for price increases.  As tariffs and component price increases filter through BOM at almost every level  maintaining steady margins at the manufacturing level is not an easy task and what might seem like modest cost increases for components, transportation, or tariffs are magnified at the manufacturing level , where there is little opportunity to adjust prices once they are set for a particular product cycle.  This adds to the complexity of feature decisions during periods of high inflation, and we believe in recent years it has led to a lack of new hardware features in flagship phones.

Apple’s iPhone 17 Display Order Shifts: Samsung and LG Dominate as China's BOE is Sidelined
New data from UBI Research reveal the competition for Apple’s (AAPL) high volume iPhone 17 series LTPO OLED display panels has seen a dramatic shift.  While China’s BOE (200725.CH) was expected to be a major player, initial orders show the company has been almost entirely eliminated from global supply for the latest series  The massive initial order of ~89 million units has been predominantly awarded to South Korean panel producers Samsung Display (pvt) and LG Display (LPL), with BOE slated to supply only 1.3 million units (2% share), primarily for the Chinese market. 
Several factors point to the limiting of BOE’s role in the iPhone 17 series global supply chain:

• Yield Issues and Strict Standards: BOE has faced consistent yield issues with Apple’s advanced LTPO OLED displays in the past. Apple’s famously rigorous technology and production requirements likely proved to be a hurdle for the Chinese supplier
• Patent Infringement and U.S. Legal Liability: A recent ITC court ruling against BOE for patent infringement appears to be a major factor. Supplying displays that infringe on patents, particularly in the US market, creates significant legal liability for Apple. By restricting BOE’s supply to mainland China, Apple minimizes this exposure.

The reduction in BOE's order is a major win for the South Korean tag team. Samsung Display leads with an estimated 57 million units (64% share), and LG Display secures approximately 30 million units (34% share) of the initial iPhone 17 panel order.

BOE: Down But Not Out in the Mobile Display Market
Despite this setback for the iPhone 17 series, BOE is far from defeated.

• Current Supply Role: BOE remains a vital supplier for older iPhone models, shipping 23 million units of previous-generation displays in the first half of this year.
• Price Pressure Leverage: Apple strategically needs BOE, typically the lowest-priced OLED producer, to maintain price pressure on Samsung Display and LG Display. This competition has dramatically reduced component costs. For instance, the price of the current iPhone Pro panel is now approximately $40 (UBI Research), a significant drop from the $55 cost of the iPhone 13 Pro display in late 2021.

This price drop is a remarkable achievement for the industry, considering the current iPhone 17 Pro display is a technically superior, larger (6.3-inch) LTPO OLED panel with a higher resolution and dramatically improved peak brightness (3,000 nits vs. 1,200 nits on the older model). The cost is 27.3% lower despite the superior technology.
The Future of Mobile Display Competition
BOE continues its aggressive growth in the domestic Chinese OLED display business and is a significant competitor on a global scale. While the legal challenges and Apple's strict volume requirements pose significant hurdles, BOE is a tenacious player. The company knows the importance of securing orders from the world's largest purchaser of mobile displays, and while they might be "out in this round," the long-term fight for display dominance is far from over.

According to a number of sources, the recently released iPhone 17 series is selling better than the iPhone 16 series in its two largest markets, China and the US.  As such headlines are typically serving to garner clicks and contain little real information or data, we took things a bit further to try and flesh out what those headlines really mean.
Apple (AAPL) avoids the term MSRP (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price) for legal liability reasons, referring to ‘retail price’, but retailers themselves often use MSRP to indicate ‘list price’ for the phones.  A comparison of list prices of iPhone models for the years 2015 – 2017 is shown below:

Given that the initial price for the iPhone 17 base model is $100 cheaper than its series 16 equivalent, it is difficult to evaluate the influence other factors (features, style improvements, etc.) might be having on early iPhone 17 sales, but given that both the US and China are the iPhone’s largest markets, we also compare the US base price to the Chinese base price below:

As can be seen, the Chinese MSRP prices are higher than those in the US, giving an advantage to US buyers, but both US and Chinese buyers are also offered a number of ‘discount’ options that can reduce the price of upgrading or switching carriers to as low as zero, however almost all carrier discounts still require full payment with a 24, 30, or 36 month bill credit repayment system that also typically requires signing up for a new (usually the high-priced plans) plan.  Apple and others offer trade-in discounts, in some cases regardless of the condition of the trade-in, although the values drop quickly when you trade in older models.
In China, retailers offer coupons (ostensibly for the 11/11 shopping holiday, although it is mid-October) and rebates that are specific to retailers and platforms.  T-Mall (BABA) offered coupons that lowered prices of some models by ¥300 ($42.13), while offered coupons up to ¥900 ($126.38) which lowered the prices of some models below the US MSRP, and almost all offered interest free installment pay plans.
So with all of this price chicanery, did the numbers for this year pane out?  On a combined basis over the first 10 days of availability the iPhone 17 series outsold the iPhone 16 series by 14%[1] y/y, with 8.8 million units sold versus 7.7 million last year.  Here’s how it breaks out between the US and China, along with model growth:


[1] Source: Counterpoint

We estimate that Apple sells between 72 and 90 million iPhones in the 4th calendar quarter of the year (see table below).  While this can be heavily weighted toward the current year’s models it also includes sales of previous year models, making current iPhone series estimates difficult and basing 4Q unit volume on a 14% y/y gain during the first 10 days does not account for the natural tapering of enthusiasm that occurs in each sales cycle.  While we would like to get a longer picture as to iPhone 17 series sales, especially in the US, we estimate a 4% to 5% improvement in total iPhone shipments in the 4th calendar quarter, or 80.7 million units.  Not a record, but certainly an improvement over last year, which was up 7% over the previous year’s models (iPhone 15) during the 1st 10 days of sales.  Rumors have been circulating that Apple has already cut the number of iPhone 17 Air units it is having assembled and increased the number of iPhone Basic units by ~5 million.  Whether that number will all appear in 4Q or be spread into 1Q or 2Q is unknown.

​All in, this is certainly positive news for Apple, but we hesitate to overstate the potential given the ongoing trade battle between the US and China.  Apple is certainly not hesitating to ‘kiss the ring’, making contributions to the WH Ballroom project, pledging a new $100 billion commitment to  US manufacturing, and announcing plans for a new AI hardware plant in Texas.  But staying on the good side of the President is a hit or miss proposition and companies can move in and out of favor quickly. And if sentiment sours further anti-American sentiment in China could flare.  It seems that Apple was able to maintain the excitement needed for a replacement cycle.  Now they have to keep that momentum going for the next year. 

India gets no respect in the smartphone market, despite having the largest population on a per country basis.  In fact India, counting both smartphone and feature phone shipments (domestic only) ships more units than Europe and any other country other than China, although the value of those shipments falls behind the US, Europe, and China.  That said, the feature phone market in India is dwindling and currently represents ~21.6% of units shipped, but only 4.3% of sales value, and is expected to continue to decline as smartphone offerings at the low-end continue to increase.
There has been a recovery of sorts in the global smartphone market this year and India has participated.  As of 3Q, India’s domestic smartphone shipments have increased by 5.7% y/y on a cumulative basis and have surpassed quarterly 5-year average shipment levels in both 2Q and 3Q.  While we expect 4Q to be a bit more difficult (typically ↓12.4% q/q), if shipment levels just meet the 5-year average (39.54 million smartphone units), the year will still be up ~2.0% y/y after a very strong 2024 (↑9.5% in units) and continuing the upward trend that began in 2023.

While India is a topic of conversation in the smartphone space because it is rapidly becoming a smartphone assembly hub, replacing China during turbulence surrounding trade and tariffs, as a consuming nation India exceeds the US in unit volume and will likely exceed the US in smartphone sales volume over the next two years.  The Indian population has some of the same characteristics as China in that there is a portion of the population that is quite rural and is poorly penetrated by smartphone brands, but over time brands will find their way into that rural population, as they has been doing in China.  Perhaps the India government will offer subsidies to stimulate smartphone growth, although there is less of a competitive mindset relative to the Chinese smartphone market, or will develop and promote a chain of shopping holidays as did China, but with an expanding population and one that is moving up the productivity ladder, we expect India will get more respect as it grows it smartphone business and challenges China for supremacy in the mobile space.

Smartphone brands are constantly trying to adapt to what is an extremely competitive environment.  Each year almost every brand has at least one major model release, and those with more extensive lines, can have two or three, with a number of brands also developing sub-brands  to maintain a certain brand image, while broadening their reach with consumers.  For instance Chinese smartphone producer Xiaomi (1810.HK) produces it own ‘Redmi’ smartphone line but also produces the ‘POCO’ brand of mid-range smartphones and the ‘Black Shark’ line of high-end gaming phones.
As consumers’ wants evolve, brands must adapt and offer a more or less diverse line of phones to broaden their customer base.  In some cases this means segmenting price points or feature sets, but shipments and share are the goalposts in the smartphone business and new models must perform or they drag down the brand and eat into profits.  The planning for new models is a complex issue as it rests on both the expertise of the brand’s marketing department and the company’s technical ability to satisfy evolving customer needs.  While brands can test new devices internally, using staff and focus groups, given the competitive nature of these products and the number of folks trying to get a peek before release, much depends on the expertise of the internal organization and even the most experienced product developers sometimes miscalculate, as it is very easy to convince oneself that such decisions are correct when your job depends on it.  The table below shows how Samsung’s Galaxy line models have evolved over the years.

Last year, years of progressively disappointing sales of the Galaxy S Plus series pushed Samsung to develop the Galaxy S25 Edge with the intention of substituting the Galaxy Edge for the Galaxy S Plus in 2026.  Unfortunately the sales of the Edge, which was a modified Galaxy S25+ that was 1.5mm. thinner, 27 grams lighter, had a bigger main camera, and a bigger battery for $100 more than the S25+.  Expectations were high pre-release, but early sales were disappointing, and Samsung seems to have set very low production volume for the remainder of the year for the S25 Edge, especially relative to the Galaxy S25+, which it was thought to be replacing next year, and the top Galaxy sellers, the S25 and the S25 Ultra.
According to industry sources here are the expected production volumes for the period between September and December:

• Galaxy 25 Edge                         300,000
• Galaxy S25+                               500,000
• Galaxy S25                                 2,900,000
• Galaxy S25 Ultra                       3,400,000

This substandard performance for the S25 Edge seems to have put the Galaxy S26+ program back into next year’s development lineup.  The question is whether Samsung has enough long-term confidence in whether the S26 Edge will sell more if the S26+ is not released.  Right now it seems they are hedging their bets by developing all four models, but it seems counterintuitive to release both the S26+ and the S26 Edge next year as they are quite close in price and function. 
Actual mass production for the displays begins later this month, although both the Galaxy S26+ and the Galaxy S26 Edge will use the same display, making early orders less dependent on a final decision.  That said, Samsung usually announces the upcoming Galaxy S series line in late January to early February, so a decision does need to be made soon.  The default would be to produce all four, but with the company trying to squeeze as much margin as possible out of the mobile division, three would likely be more profitable if they could boost sales for whichever model is chosen.  As both the S+ and the Edge sit between the Ultra and the standard Galaxy S, price will be more difficult to maneuver, which means features will likely be the selling point without overshadowing the Ultra.   No pressure…

Smartphone brands are always under pressure.  They need to compete with other smartphone brands on a feature-by-feature basis and are often unpleasantly surprised by a new feature from a competitor that they had not prepared for.  The success or failure of a particular feature or application can make or break a model for an entire selling cycle and can give a new brand a blackeye that they never recover from (see sidebar).  Given the pressure facing designers and the deadlines involved, it can be seen that some of said problems are the fault of overpromising features that failed to live up to the hype or others that have been pushed out to consumers in a not-quite-ready state in order to meet a deadline or compete.

Red Hydrogen
Red was a highly regarded  professional video camera producer.  The assumption after a year of delay, was that the company’s initial smartphone would blow away the competition with a spectacular camera and a holographic display.  It turned out to have a mediocre camera, a fuzzy display, and a $1,300 price tag.  It ended the RED smartphone line at one model.

​Blackberry Storm
Blackberry ruled the smartphone world until Apple released the first iPhone on late 2007.  Blackberry’s had built-in physical keyboards, while the iPhone had a virtual keyboard.  The Blackberry Storm, released in 2008 was the first Blackberry to have a virtual keyboard.  The unit sold well initially but the keyboard did not work properly and almost all 1.5m had to be replaced by Verizon.

In some cases, usually software related problems, fixes were made with OS updates relatively quickly, while others, with more pressing hardware issues, required more ‘stringent’ fixes.  This is not a company issue, as it has happened to almost all smartphone brands, leader Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (005930.KS) included, along with smaller or long-past brands (see sidebar).  That said, while all brands fall pray to these problems, brands tend to react to them differently, and with the influence of social media, things can escalate very quickly into a marketing nightmare.
Apple faced one back in 2010 with the iPhone 4 (Antennagate).  It seems that by holding the phone in your left hand your finger ‘connected’ two parts of the internal antenna causing the signal to fail.  Apple never reported the number of units replaced but we expect it was a substantial number.
In 2016 Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7, and within a few weeks there were reports of the device overheating and catching fire.  This prompted a recall of 2.5m units and the replacement of 500k devices.  Samsung eventually recovered over 96% of that model after cancelling it entirely.
Since then there have been many smartphone release issues, and we expect the need to meet deadlines has shortened the time brands are able to test phone hardware and applications in real world situations, so these issues will never go away.  That said, Ai adds a new flavor to the mix, and one that will be even harder to control than in the past.  As AI is both a standalone application and embedded in applications, the core AI architecture is pervasive across the smartphone and an issue with the AI function can be magnified by that connection.  Apple is facing such an issue now, with the release of the iPhone 17 line which includes Apple intelligence.  Only days after the release reports of three issues have surfaced.

• Scratch issues – It has been reported that the anodized aluminum frame on the iPhone Pro models is prone to chipping and scratching as the anodizing is weak at corners.  Keys or coins can cause bits of the anodizing to come off.  This year’s models saw a return from titanium frames to aluminum, and it seems the anodizing process is not perfect.  Apple acknowledged the issue but says that what users are seeing is not permanent scratching but a ‘material transfer’, essentially residue from other objects (keys and coins again) could leave marks, some of which can be wiped away.   No comment on the ones that cannot be wiped away.
• Connectivity (iPhone 17) – Wi-Fi issues which can cause skips in audio and disconnections when using iPods.  The problems is thought to be an issue with Apple’s N1 chip, which means an immediate fix is unlikely but certainly a relatively small problem.
• Apple Intelligence – Apple Intelligence, which normally would supply ‘smarter suggestions’, ‘contextual insights’, and empower other creative tools, does not seem to be working for everyone.  This is common to all four models.  The AI continually askes users to download the application even though it is already present, with some stating that it started when the asked the system to revert back to the Siri animation from the previous version.  Apple is aware of the bug and is thought to be working on an update but has advised users to try reinstalling Apple Intelligence, forcing the ‘settings’ application to close, or re-signing in to their Apple ID, although none of those fixes seems to work for all users.

All in, every new smartphone has some issues, but brands tend to be quite defensive about them, rather than defuse the situation by making things right with a ‘We acknowledge that there might be an issue with XYZ, but we are working on a fix that will satisfy the small number of users who are experience the issue.”  Rather than evade the problem or belittle the users that reported it, this says the company understands that there is an issue, but it only affects a small number of users and is being worked on presently.  If it is big problem, like that with the Note 7, that is another story.

Apple (AAPL) announced a series of new products yesterday, among them the new models of the iPhone (iPhone 17 series).  We take a look  at the differences between the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the iPhone 17 Pro Max from a hardware perspective, with the understanding that this look does not include many of the internal components that would be the subject of a teardown.  We do this from the perspective of the average consumer who sees look-and-feel along with major visible components as their guide to how different the new device is compared to last year’s model.  We only list those items that have changed and highlight the important ones:

We note the following:

• Typical display brightness for both models is 1,000 nits. The iPhone 16 Pro Max display was able to sustain a 2,000 nit display in high brightness mode, but it seems that it required considerable power which could lead to issues like throttling.  The iPhone 17 Pro Max has a lower sustainable HBM level, likely to avoid rapid battery drain or other issues, but can reach 3,000 nits for very short period (peak is measured in milliseconds).  Most consumers will care about standard mode and HBM when in sunlight, so peak is almost irrelevant. 
• The iPhone 17 Pro Max is the first iPhone to have a dedicated anti-reflective coating, a point for competition among high-end phones. 
• While the inclusion of a 2TB memory option for the iPhone 17 Pro Max is not surprising (a $400 option) it is an option that will become more commonplace as memory prices decline, and on-board AI requires dedicated memory.  A medium size 7 billion parameter model requires at least 14 GB of RAM, although newer phones that are optimized for AI can work on less, but large tasks need larger memory, as many model core parameters must be loaded into phone RAM when the model is first invoked in order to operate.  They can stay in cached mode (lower memory use) when not in use while other applications are running, but if they are ended or the phone is restarted, they must be reloaded again.  This is very similar to the way some applications run in the background while the phone is doing other things. 
• The larger battery in the iPhone 17 Pro Max is a function of space.  Removing the sim card and replacing it with an electronic sim (e-sim or nano-sim) frees up space.  In earlier iPhones (iPhone 14 on) the empty space was either filled with a plastic spacer, or the interior was redesigned.  In the iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple used the additional space to increase the capacity of the battery.  We believe the charging time improvement is a big plus for consumers.

While the hardware changes between the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the iPhone 17 Pro Max seem to be relatively minor, Apple’s self-designed chipsets are an upgrade that might not be seen my consumers but should improve performance.  We look to Delta Tech for details as they have already done a performance comparison.  Here are the comps:

In June China shipped 22.6m smartphones, down 4.7% m/m, down 9.3% y/y, and down 3.9% on a cumulative (6 months) y/y basis.  For the 2nd month in a row Chinese smartphone shipments declined on a y/y basis, adding to the suggestion  that China’s “New for Old” subsidy program is beginning to wear thin.  This seems especially true with high-end phones, after 18 months (smartphones were added 8 months ago) and $43.7b (US$ as of June 30) has been spent to encourage Chinese consumers.  With subsidies focused on phones under $840 and subsidies of up to 15%, early momentum was strong but seems to be fading as the year grinds on with expectations for under 2% growth in smartphone unit shipments for the year,.  So while the subsidies were effective at the onset, they are expected to have only a small effect on longer-term smartphone prospects in China and with a strong 2H last year y/y comparisons could be difficult for the remainder of the year..