Apple sold 212 million iPhone in its fiscal year for 2016, down 8%. It's rare that the company fails to grow sales. The company has taken a beating as a result, and CEO Tim Cook now regularly comes in for harsh criticism.
But hold that thought.
The installed base of current iPhone users now stands at about 691 million phones, according to Sacconaghi. By 2018 that number is estimated to be 855 million.
Data from Bernstein / chart from BI
By 2018, 203 million iPhones will become old enough that users are likely to buy a new model:
Data from Bernstein / chart from BI
The upgrade rate stays at roughly 1 in every 4 iPhones in the installed base, annually:
Data from Bernstein / chart from BI
In other words, Apple can expect to get a year's worth of new iPhone sales simply from the one-quarter of existing iPhone users who feel they will need a new phone.
So, Tim Cook may not have launched a new product as revolutionary as the iPhone, but he does deserve credit for creating a product so big that its future sales growth is a function of how massive its historic customer base is.