Apple's 11 million replaced iPhone batteries demonstrates impact of iPhone planned obsolescence

It turns out  Apple has benefited massively from their poor battery management and difficult to replace battery. When the company was forced to offer affordable iPhone battery replacements the uptake exceeded its expectations for battery replacement in 2018 by a good margin. The company replaced over 11 million batteries in 2018.

Apple ran a battery replacement program to allow users to replace batteries for just $29 and prevent their iPhones from slowing down. According to Gruber, Apple usually expects to perform around two million battery replacements in a year. Unfortunately for Apple, 11 million people went on to replace their batteries instead of buying a new iPhone. This was one of the major factors why the company had a disastrous quarter. However, not everything was rigged for Apple as the company made almost $300 million just from battery replacements which would have not happened if they had not offered the discounts. Not only that, with the battery replacement program, Apple ensured that customers don’t switch to Android and the company can still make money by selling them Apple services and accessories.

That said, Apple did have a bad year and the company will look to bounce back in 2019. We don’t know what Apple has in store for us this year but it sure should be worth paying more than $1,000 for, else they will continue to see the decrease in sales even in 2019.

Via: The Verge