Amid rumors that the iPhone XR isn’t selling as briskly as Apple anticipated, a new report from Bloomberg relays that Apple is exploring new marketing strategies as part of a broader effort to bolster demand. What’s more, Apple has shifted some of its marketing resources around in order to get more people working on iPhone XR marketing efforts.
Citing a source who claims to be familiar with what’s going on behind the scenes, the internal marketing shift was described as a “fire drill.” The takeaway here is that demand for the device might indeed be far below some of Apple’s internal sales projections.
As for what Apple is doing to help boost demand, you might remember that the company about a week ago began offering an additional $100 in trade-in value for old phones to users keen on upgrading to either the iPhone XS or iPhone XR. Apple’s website notes that the extra $100 in trade-in credit is only available for a limited time so there’s no way of knowing how long it’s going to last.
The Bloomberg report reads in part:
Apple retail employees have also been told in recent weeks to mention the program more often to consumers in stores, according to another person familiar with the situation. Some Japanese wireless carriers also cut iPhone XR pricing last week by way of subsidies.
Per usual, Apple declined to provide a comment on the story, though Apple executive Greg Joswiak last week disclosed that the iPhone XR has been the most popular iPhone model “each and every day since the day it became available.”
While Joswiak’s statement was intended to alleviate concerns regarding iPhone XR sales, it’s dangerous to read too much into it. After all, just because the iPhone XR is the best selling iPhone relative to the pricier iPhone XS models doesn’t necessarily mean that the iPhone XR is flying off the shelves, or even living up to Apple’s own projections.
Of course, unless Apple provides us with specific sales figures, we’ll have no way to know how the iPhone XR is actually selling, especially now that Apple will no longer provide us with unit sales for the iPhone.
