大批iPhone用户短期内不会再购新机 苹果将如何应对

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.

消费者信息研究伙伴公司的迈克尔o列文周一向媒体公布了上述图表。他喜欢使用传统零售业的语言谈论智能手机市场。

“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：“很多人刚刚购买了新iPhone手机，这就好像他们去了一趟好市多超市，采购了大量卫生纸囤积在家里一样。”

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.

用零售业的术语来说，美国的iPhone用户上个季度“备足了存货”，等他们下次再来购买手机，可能要等到很长时间以后了。

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

这个时间到底有多长？列文没有进行胡乱猜测，不过他指出了几个有可能减缓置换周期的因素。

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

o 72%的iPhone用户的手机相对较新——只购买了不到一年半。

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

o 在上个季度激活iPhone的用户中，86%属于再次购买iPhone（安卓的再次购买比例紧随其后，达到72%。）

o 30% of those phones were financed, not subsidized

o 30%的手机采取了贷款方案，而不是补贴模式。

“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：“苹果吸引首次购买的新用户或劝说安卓用户转换阵营的能力显著降低了，用户的忠诚度大幅提高。”

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

贷款购机，也就是说像买车一样分期付款购买手机，正变得越来越流行，这或许导致销售新手机变得更加困难。

“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：“当你终于还完车贷时，你会有一种‘谢天谢地’的感觉，这时你会稍等一阵子，而不是立刻再买一辆新的。”

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.'”

买手机也是一样。“当人们终于拥有了一台新手机，他们可能会对自己说：‘我成为这部手机的主人了，它还挺新的，所以我暂时不会再买其它手机了。’”

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

列文表示，为期两年的补贴模式其实没有多大意义，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.

这对苹果的影响要大于安卓，因为苹果手机一般使用时间更长，苹果用户的忠诚度也更高。

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

像很多其他分析师一样，列文也在展望下一代iPhone，很想知道苹果将如何坚持下去。

“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：“苹果要想在一两年里继续销售大量iPhone，就必须拿出一些不可思议的创新。”