In some respects, 2017 was a rough year for Apple. Aside from a slew of widely publicized product leaks — many of which emanated from Apple itself — 2017 also saw Apple deal with an embarrassing and critical security flaw on MacOS High Sierra that allowed anyone with physical proximity to a machine gain root access. All that said, the most important metric for Apple — iPhone sales — gave the company much to cheer about.
A new report from the USA Today relays that the iPhone was the best-selling tech item across the entire year. Even more impressive is that iPhone sales checked in higher than the cumulative total of products in the number two through number 5 slots.
The sales data was tabulated by GBH analyst Daniel Ives who notes that iPhone sales for the year checked in at 223 million units, followed by Samsung Galaxy S8 and Note 8 smartphones (33 million), Amazon Echo products (24 million), Apple Watch (20 million) and the popular Nintendo Switch (15 million).
If Ives’ iPhone projection is accurate — we’ll know for certain once Apple releases its earnings report next month — iPhone sales will have increased by about 5% year over year. While that’s not a staggering figure, it’s certainly an encouraging sign for investors, especially given that many analysts over the past few years have been championing the notion that we’ve already reached peak iPhone.
Beyond 2017, some analysts anticipate that Apple in 2018 will sell a record number of iPhones. While the current record stands at 231 million units, Morgan Stanley, for example, believes that Apple could sell upwards of 262 million iPhones next year. Incidentally, rumor has it that Apple next year will release not one, but three brand new iPhone models. Two of these models will reportedly feature edgeless OLED displays while the third will feature an edgeles LCD display.
