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Recording and transcript of the June 9, 2026 Asymco One Office Hours, recorded the day after Apple's WWDC 2026 keynote. Horace Dediu shares his impressions of the event and takes questions from Asymco One subscribers.
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Measuring the future
In January this year Apple reported that there were 2.5 billion active Apple devices in use. This figure has been getting updated for years and I've been reporting its trajectory and other measures that are correlated to it. For instance the number of Apple subscriptions, Apple Services revenues and other historical indicators such as iCloud accounts and Apple Music.
Simplifying, I published the "ACTIVE" model which makes some basic projections of this total device count and it's shown below"
One element of the analysis that has eluded me was the more precise composition of this total "devices". In other words, which devices and what is their mix. We have seen numbers for iPhones but not for other types of devices. I should note that this is not easily derived because we have neither the units sold (only revenues) and we don't know how long they stay in use. The measure of active population implies that the products are bought, used and eventually retired.
The only clue we have, beside quarterly revenues--and even there wearables and home are not separated by product--is that management occasionally mentions that "more than half" of buyers of a specific product are "new to the product". It's not much to go on.
But there are other data sets we can tap. StatCounter provides a share of platforms in use by aggregating browser identifying data for a moderately large set of web sites. That may help with share of base but not with how much the total base is. Various other analysts do try to summarize some of the installed base for particular dates.
Combining all the available data and some interpolation, I set out to do is to provide a yearly count of the population of Apple devices for each year since 2007. Then to try to forecast this population to 2030. The result is shown below:
The following is a summary for the components for the end of 2025 in millions:
| Year-end | Mac | iPhone | iPad | Watch | Apple TV | HomePod | Other |
| 2025 | 233 | 1500 | 442 | 203 | 58.5 | 61.75 | 0.5 |
This history looks like this:
What about the future? Let's dig in.
This is a future five years away. Is this growth rate and consistency in mix a reasonable assumption?
To answer, we should zoom out and look at not just Apple's device base. The following graph shows also Android phones and tablets, Windows, Linux (PC) and Game Consoles.[1] It contrasts mobile and "non-mobile" computing and shows the total global population (blue line).
I have several observations:
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3500 users surveyed
In surveying roughly 3,500 smartphone users, the average monthly spend of a user has increased to around $13, up from the three-year average of roughly $9, “driven by broader application adoption and mix shift toward higher-value offerings,” analyst Amit Daryanani said.
Delving deeper, the survey indicated that roughly 63% of respondents now have AppleCare or Apple One, up from the three-year average of 44%. Apple Pay usage has increased as well, as roughly 40% of respondents said they use it, compared to roughly 30% for the three-year average. Other services also saw increases when compared to the three-year average, including iCloud (only 15% have no usage, down from the three-year average of 24%, while 28% say they now have 2 TB worth of storage, up from roughly 11%); Apple Music (roughly 61% compared to approximately 44%); and Apple TV, which roughly 54% of respondents said they used, compared to the three-year average of about 34%.
Additionally, Apple TV (formerly known as Apple TV+) is now the second most watched streaming service in the survey, surpassing Amazon Prime Video, Daryanani said.
Aside from Apple's paid services, the survey indicated that Apple Intelligence is seeing some traction, though it was described as “muted.”“Upgrade intent remained muted, with ~44% of users indicating willingness to upgrade for AI features, a ~2pt decline from our prior survey,” Daryanani added. “We think users are underappreciating the potential of Apple Intelligence 2.0 and 'AI Siri,' particularly as new capabilities are rolled out later this year, which will include Gemini model integration. Importantly, we see early signs of monetization, with underlying demand for premium features, as ~61% of respondents indicated willingness to pay for a personalized 'AI Siri' subscription.”
Source: Seeking Alpha
NB: The AppleCare number is interesting.…
Asymco Bulletin is a digest of all the work we have published for the week ending Mar 28, 2026.
In Apple’s first 50 years it shipped 5.13 billion computers. This shipment total is higher than any other computer company in its first 50 years. There actually are no other PC makers that are 50 years old. But all these things were true also 40 years ago. So what are we celebrating now that we did not celebrate at Apple 40? The answer is Services, the consistency in growth in user base and the potential trajectory of growth to never-before imagine audiences. The biggest change is a change of horizons. →
Says Neal Stephenson who first coined the term “metaverse” This revelation came soon after Meta canceled the Metaverse. Let’s look into Neal Stephenson’s mea culpa:
When I was working at Magic Leap, and people asked me why I thought that [Metaverse] was a good idea, I would ask the rhetorical question: “do you really think that twenty years from now everyone is still going to be going around all day staring at little rectangles in their hands?” →
How everyone is wrong about AI. The newspaper was an unexpected development It was not a product that anyone asked for. Like many innovations, it wasn’t an invention. It was not patented or discovered in a laboratory. It emerged as a result of the convergence of three disparate technologies: continuous roll printing presses, the telegraph, and the railroad. This convergence occurred by the 1830s, facilitated by a business model aptly named “the penny press”. Stepping back, the printing press was initially developed in the 1450s, 40 years before Columbus’ voyage. It went through numerous evolutions. The big change was moving →
Apple, Samsung Dominate 2025 List of Highest-shipping Models Across Regions → In 2025, Apple dominated premium smartphone markets across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, while Samsung excelled in entry- to mid-tier segments in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa. →
Tim Cook: Apple just had best launch week ever for first-time Mac customers → Neo brought Apple its strongest launch week performance, presumably by attracting first-time Mac buyers, and helping customers transition out of netbooks and Windows laptops. →
Running a data-center AI model on a MacBook → Apple's MacBook Pro, with its unique Apple silicon architecture, could revolutionize personal AI by enabling powerful AI models to run locally without relying on cloud data centers, potentially shifting the competitive landscape in Apple's favor despite current perceptions of lagging behind in AI advancements. →
Apple’s China smartphone sales jump 23% as overall market fell 4% to start 2026 → Apple defied market trends with a striking 23% iPhone sales surge in China, outpacing competitors despite broader smartphone shipment declines. →
“There’s So Much Left” in iPhone: Tim Cook → Apple's relentless focus on user-centric innovation, epitomized by the ever-ascendant iPhone, underscores its enduring dominance and untapped market potential. →
Amazon developing a new phone more than a decade after its first → Amazon's renewed attempt at a smartphone, "Transformer," aims to integrate AI and deepen Prime ecosystem ties, learning from past Fire failures by addressing trust, scale, and developer engagement challenges. →
Mac fastest growing PC brand in India in Q4 2025 → In 2025, India's PC market soared to a record 15.9 million units, with Mac sales impressively up 24% year over year, hinting at a bright future despite looming 2026 challenges. →
Forget Streetview, Immersion hints at what’s to come → "Waddle transforms visionOS into a portal of immersive exploration, where experiencing surpasses explaining." →
How to read the MacBook Neo as bad news for the stock → "Apple's Neo success is misleadingly painted as a margin threat, ignoring cost efficiencies and manufacturing leverage." →
Apple TV is a categorization failure → Apple TV, launched in 2007, struggled for 19 years as a misunderstood, underappreciated gateway to content, overshadowed by Apple's product-centric reputation. →
Apple’s Custom Silicon Opens up Potential for a Cellular MacBook → "Apple's C1X modem not only matches Qualcomm's performance but also reshapes the economic landscape for always-connected MacBooks, hinting at a future where seamless cellular integration redefines portable computing." →
Apple turns component crisis into competitive advantage → Apple leverages the memory crisis to aggressively capture market share from struggling Android, PC, and Chromebook competitors. →
Survey shows record upgrade interest for iPhones → Morgan Stanley forecasts Apple as the sole major smartphone vendor to gain market share in 2026, driven by strong upgrade intent and advanced features, while Android struggles with rising costs and declining loyalty. →
MacBook Neo Market Impact: Analysts weigh in → Market analysts predict the MacBook Neo will disrupt the low-end PC market, especially in education, by leveraging Apple's higher margins and user-centric design, despite challenges from price-sensitive K-12 sectors dominated by Chromebooks. →
World’s most respected Apple Analyst. —Macfilos
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19 years of failure
Apple TV completes 19 years since its launch, as reports suggest a new model may arrive soon. Apple introduced the original Apple TV in January 2007, and released it in March the same year. The device marked Apple’s early step into home entertainment.
From simple streaming box to smart hub
Source: The Mac Observer
NB: The product was always misunderstood. Judged as a product, Apple TV was always without traction. Never seen as a hit, often ignored. The problem has always been with the assumption that Apple was a "product company" or a "design/marketing company" or the "Mac | iPod | iPhone company". The hint is in the observation of the name Apple TV being both a product and a service. From a hardware point of view, the Apple TV is almost a Mac Mini, but with an A-series chipset and a funny input device. It was also priced so low that it probably had minimal margins. But that was never the point. Apple TV hardware ended up being the "brains" of the TV itself and the "set-top box" and the gateway to all content on the screen. Quite an achievement for a flop.
Asymco Bulletin is a digest of all the work we have published for the week ending March 1, 2026.
Our first Office Hours interactive seminar and Ask Me Anything questions/answer session will be on March 4th, after, presumably all the new announcements Apple will be making during the week. I will be broadcasting to you en vivo y en directo from Paris.
Apple March 4 Special Event – Q&A → Join us for an exclusive Asymco One live Q&A on March 4 at 3pm ET to dissect Apple's latest business moves. →
Greater China (GC) is a specific reporting segment for Apple, encompassing Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, with a combined population nearing 1.5 billion. This region is not just a significant contributor to Apple's revenue—accounting for 18% of net sales in Q4 2025—but also a dynamic landscape of technological adoption and consumer behavior. The smartphone user base in GC has surged from 690 million in 2016 to nearly a billion in 2025, with projections reaching 1.08 billion by 2029.
The iOS ecosystem within GC exhibits varied dynamics across its constituent regions. While Macao maintains a steady iOS share of around 60%, Mainland China and Taiwan show different trajectories. Analyzing these trends through mobile OS share data reveals iOS's ascent, suggesting robust potential for further penetration and user engagement. As Apple navigates this complex market, understanding GC's historical growth patterns and future prospects is crucial for capitalizing on emerging opportunities and sustaining its competitive edge. →
Apple #1 phone vendor in Europe → Apple leads Q4 2025 with a 7% YoY shipment rise driven by iPhone 17, while Samsung follows with 4% growth; Xiaomi faces a 6% decline amid shifting regional dynamics. →
Are Solid State Batteries Finally Here? → Donut Lab has partnered with VTT for independent battery tests, with full reports and videos to follow. →
iPhone becomes India’s top single export item → In 2025, Apple's iPhone exports from India, driven by Tata and Foxconn plants and a robust supply chain, reached $23 billion, making smartphones the top export category. →
Apple’s App Store growth is reaccelerating → Apple's Services, beyond just the App Store, are poised for robust growth, driven by global market expansion and strong hardware demand. →
Here’s why demand for Macs has spiked → Mac lead times have surged to multi-year highs due to increased demand, notably impacting models like Mac Studio, MacBook Pro M4, and Mac Mini. →
A resource for AVP news → "AVP VIP offers a weekly, ad-free digest of tech news and insights, accessible to Asymco One members." →
Apple to Start Assembling Mac mini in the United States This Year → Apple revamps the Mac mini with M4 chips and boosts U.S. chip sourcing, starting at $599 without display, amid rising demand. →
Apple Pay Aiming Launch in India This Year → Apple Pay aims to launch in India by late 2026, pending regulatory approvals and fee negotiations with card issuers. →
iPhone and iPad approved to handle classified NATO information → Apple's iPhone and iPad achieve unprecedented NATO compliance, marking a pivotal shift in secure mobile technology acceptance. →
Eddy Cue says Brazil is Apple TV’s second-largest market, talks Netflix-Warner merger → In an interview, Apple's Eddy Cue highlighted Brazil as the second-largest and fastest-growing market for Apple TV subscribers, while noting potential impacts from proposed streaming regulations and a possible Netflix-Warner deal. Specific user and device numbers were not disclosed. →
DRAM Shortage Will Cause ‘Seismic Shift’ in Smartphone Market, But Apple Will Be Less Affected → A looming DRAM shortage due to AI demand will slash smartphone sales by 13% in 2026, forcing a market shift towards pricier devices, with relief not expected until mid-2027. →
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How big is Brazil for Apple, exactly?
In an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Cue emphasized Brazil’s growing role in Apple TV’s global business, reaffirmed the company’s commitment to theatrical releases, and commented on Netflix’s attempt to acquire Warner Bros.
Cue says Brazil is Apple TV’s second-largest and fastest-growing market in terms of subscribers. He adds that Apple is closely watching proposed streaming regulations in the country that could require national content quotas:
During the conversation, Cue also said Apple remains committed to doing theatrical releases through partnerships with traditional distributors. And although he recognized that “the bar for leaving home and going to the movie theater” is getting increasingly higher, he said:
Finally, Cue commented on how a potential Netflix–Warner deal could affect Apple, which has partnered with Warner on films including F1: The Movie.
Source: 9to5Mac
NB: To appreciate the Brazilian market for Apple we need to know the number of users, iPhones and devices in use. That information will be published...
What's the role of fashion in tech choice?
Apple's iPhone continues to be incredibly popular with U.S. teens, according to Piper Sandler's latest biannual teen survey. 88 percent of teens surveyed said that they own an iPhone, and 88 percent said they intend to purchase an iPhone as their next device.
Teen iPhone ownership numbers have increased three percent since April 2024, and are near record highs. The iPhone has long been the most popular smartphone among teens in the United States, and there has been steady growth in teen ownership. 10 years ago in April 2015, 66 percent of teens surveyed owned an iPhone.
Though teen interest in the iPhone is high, other Apple products and services are not as popular. Apple has not made inroads with Apple TV+, and it continues to trail Spotify as the most popular music service among teenagers.
45 percent of teens surveyed have a paid Spotify subscription, while Apple Music is the second most popular streaming service with 30 percent of teens reporting an Apple Music subscription. Because Spotify has a free tier, it's still the most popular service overall, with 65 percent of teens using it. Apple TV+ is not popular with teens, and less than one percent say they watch Apple TV+ shows. Netflix and YouTube were most popular with 31 percent and 26 percent of teens reporting usage, respectively.
Approximately 31 percent of teens own a virtual reality device, but most of those have an Oculus (25 percent). Just one percent of teens have an Apple Vision Pro, which is not a surprise given the price of Apple's device. Of teens that have a VR device, 60 percent said that they seldom use it, with just four percent reporting being a frequent daily user.
Piper Sandler surveyed 6,455 teens across 43 states for the spring 2025 report.
This data was collected in the spring of last year.
I found the above in my archives. Ownership in 2010 was about 18%, 2015 it was 66% and 2025 it was 88%. The saturation at 88% (for both ownership and intent) was achieved relatively quickly but most importantly, it remains steady.
Now consider that the teens of 2007 are having kids of their own. A 15 year old in 2007 is now 34 and a 19 year old is now 38 and some have a teen of their own.
At 19 years, the iPhone brand has transitioned across one generation with not only resilience but with deeper entrenchment. This cannot be said for other contemporary technologies, e.g. social media. While elders use Facebook the young have moved on. Perhaps to Instagram (25-34, 76% 18-29) or perhaps to TikTok (16-24) which has the strongest position for younger, Gen Z users.
Here are some additional data points on predisposition for social media:
Facebook (25-49): Largest group is 25-34 (31.1%), but also high usage among 30-49 year olds.
LinkedIn (30-49): Professional focus, ideal for B2B and adults 30-49.
YouTube (18-64+): Broad, with the highest usage (93%) in the 18-29 bracket.
Pinterest (30-49): Popular with older, female audiences.
There is quite a lot of divergence and only YouTube seems to be fairly steady across age groups.
Moreover, as the Piper Sandler survey suggests, Apple Services is not the same as the iPhone. The adoption of Music and TV are not a broad-based and that has a lot to do with disposable income. The mechanism for adoption should be the family plan whereby teens are automatically enrolled through their parents in to Music and TV+. After all, teen iPhones are likely purchased by parents. That services bundling is where Apple must focus its effort.
On January 12, Eddie Cue dropped a few significant digits on us:
The App Store alone saw over 850 million average weekly users globally. Developers earned over $550 billion on Apple platform since 2008.
Apple Pay eliminated well over $1 billion in fraud, while generating more than $100 billion in incremental merchant sales globally. Purchases made through Apple Pay significantly outpaced the overall growth in consumer spending levels during the peak holiday shopping period in November and December. Apple Pay is now available in 89 markets. with more than 11,000 banks and network partners — including more than 20 local payment networks. Tap to Pay on iPhone expanded to 34 additional markets — now covering most of Europe — and is live in a total of 50 markets, with more than 15 million merchants of all sizes across the world accepting contactless payments using just an iPhone
Apple TV eclipsed all prior viewership records in December 2025, with 36% increase in monthly engagement (total hours viewed). To date, Apple TV has amassed 672 award wins and 3,085 nominations (excluding 2026).
Apple Music reached all-time highs in both listenership and new subscribers.
Apple Fitness+ expanding to 28 additional countries and regions offering more than 8,000 workouts and meditations in 4K Ultra HD.
In 2025, Shazam generated over 1 billion recognitions per month.
Expanded Share Item Location feature in Find My to 27 additional airlines, bringing the total to 36. (This feature allows private and secure sharing of an AirTag’s or Find My network accessory’s location with an airline’s customer service, reducing “truly lost” or unrecoverable luggage by 90 percent)
Apple Podcasts expanded transcripts to over 125 million episodes in 13 languages.
Apple News solidified its position as the No. 1 news app in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and No. 2 in the UK. News features over 3,000 publications and more than 600 titles with Apple News+. News+ expanded its offerings with the debut of Apple News+ Food, which includes 100,000 recipes from 60 publications in the U.S., the UK, Australia, and English-speaking Canada. Apple News now includes over 150 local newspapers and news feeds across 50 U.S. states, seven Canadian markets, and London.
Apple One Individual and Family plans are available in more than 100 markets world-wide, with Apple One Premier, which also includes Apple Fitness+, available in more than 20 markets.
Historic data is not available on most of these singular data points however they are available at least for the payments to developers. In fact, there are 26 such data points. They are shown in the graph below as the blue dots.
The green dots and curve fitting them is my estimation of the total billings for App Store. That is, the total spent by customers on the App Store. To date, that amount is over three quarters of a trillion dollars. ($733 billion to be precise.)
Note that the data can be represented by a third order polynomial. Furthermore, since the r-squared is 0.9999, the function is very predictive. As an exercise, using this analysis it can be determined that $1 trillion will be achieved by the first quarter of 2028.
The beauty of a polynomial growth rate is that the rate of payment, that is the amount paid on a monthly basis, is itself accelerating. The following graph shows the payment rate in $million/day for developers.
This growth suggests that quite soon we will be nearing a rate of $300 million/day or $100 billion per year developer payment rate.
This is, of course, only the tip of the iceberg. As Eddie Cue points out in the press release,
In 2024, the App Store ecosystem facilitated $1.3 trillion in developer billings and sales, with more than 90 percent of that commerce going directly to developers, with zero commission paid to Apple.
To understand the totality of transactions on Apple platforms we need to explore the entirety of the App economy. There is for another post. Stay tuned.
At time of writing (December 12, 2019) AirPods Pro delivery wait time is over 4 weeks. It's been like this since they shipped. I tried stores in several countries and although units can make an appearance on a shelf, they sell out immediately.
AirPods are part of the "Wearables & Home" category for Apple which used to be called Other Products and include also the Watch, iPod, Apple TV, Beats and HomePod (among other items.) iPod revenues were broken out as recently as 2015 but as the graph below shows, there have been no specifics on any product in "Wearables & Home" since then.
It therefore falls upon us to estimate how much of the entire category is any one product. It's been very difficult as the only clues lie in growth rates, sometimes cited for the Apple Watch and sometimes for "Wearables" alone. As far as I can tell from the available clues, the split is roughly as shown between the Orange and Green areas. Orange reflects estimate for Watch and Green everything else.
This analysis helped me conclude the Apple Watch overtook the historic "peak iPod" which occurred in the fourth quarter of 2007 at $4 billion. My Watch revenue estimate was $4.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. This conclusion was confirmed by statements from the Company.
The problem lately has been that AirPods have become huge unto themselves. There is literally no information about AirPods sales as a product category. The only option is to guess Watch and subtract it from Wearables and then guess again the portion of "non-Watch Wearables & Home" that is AirPods.
Looking forward to the next quarter, I am expecting a 51% increase y/y for Wearables and 24% growth in Watch. This results in a Watch revenues about $5.2 billion and non-Watch $5.7 billion. Now if we assume $1.7 billion for non-Watch-non-AirPods (i.e. Apple TV, HomePod, Beats, iPod, other) then this quarter AirPods will have overtaken peak iPod.
Remember that iPod was the phenomenon which reset all expectations for Apple. It caused Apple to cease calling itself Apple Computer. It (at least psychologically) laid the foundation for iPhone and everything else that followed. In 2005 and through 2007 Apple was "the iPod company". I remember people working in a large search engine company calling Apple "that media company" as a result of over-intellectualizing iTunes.
(One more footnote on the AirPods Pro is that at $250 a pair and $300 for Apple Watch, throwing in a case puts these attached accessories for an iPhone at roughly the same average selling price for the iPhone of a few years ago.)
For the AirPods to overtake the iPod highlights just what a phenomenal category Wearables has become. In combination with Home and other accessories the category is going to decidedly overtake the Mac, having already passed the iPad.
And so it goes, something dismissed as inconsequential–"does not move the needle"–ends up becoming a massive force of change. The iPod was that, the original Apple II, the Mac and yes, also the iPhone. It's the asymmetry of humility that this happens over and over again.
To hear more about the profundities of AirPods Pro tune in to the next Critical Path podcast.
Research #Market · 18 comments
The last time Apple reported iPod unit and revenues was for the third quarter of 2014. Thereafter the product segment called “Other Products” was used to include what was formerly the iPod segment and the “Accessories” segment. Exactly two quarters later Apple began to sell the Apple Watch. Apple Watch was not broken out as a separate product segment and remained a part of Other Products along with iPod touch, Beats, Apple TV, and Apple-branded and third-party accessories. Soon the HomePod will also join the Other products.
The combined iPod, Accessories and “Other” product sales are shown in the following graph. ((Two quarters include estimated iPod revenues: Q4 ’14 and Q1 ’15. The iPod contribution is estimated with a simple extrapolation using the previous four quarters’ average rate of decline))
Note that an attempt is made to estimate the contribution of Apple Watch to the mix. The method is simple: if you can estimate the non-Watch sales trajectory then the Watch is the difference between Other total and this trajectory.
If we discount the iPod, the non-Watch revenues come down to Apple TV and Beats, mainly. Note that the data shows the contribution of Beats (Q4 2010) but it’s hard to parse specifically the growth of Beats. Since the Watch launched we also saw the introduction of AirPods and new Apple TVs, both of which probably contributed to some growth to “Other excluding Watch.”
We can take a stab at the first 6 quarters of Watch by projecting Other with some nominal growth. Thereafter Watch can be modeled using growth assumptions. Apple stated that growth was above 50% during the past three quarters. There are a few quarters where we must make guesses but overall the picture that emerges, shown below, is fairly robust. Note that I’ve included estimates for the fourth quarter of 2017 assuming continuing 50% growth. This is driven primarily by the launch of the LTE-enabled Series 3.
The result is a cumulative sales value of $14.3 billion and a volume of 40 million units (based on average pricing assumptions).
But what most catches the eye is the transition from iPod to Watch. Watch entered nearly at the same time as iPod bowed out. Its contribution to sales seems to mirror the iPod as well. The interesting question then becomes if the Watch will eventually match and indeed exceed the revenues from iPod.
I’d say the better question is _when_ Watch will overtake iPod. From a revenue point of view, I believe next year’s fourth quarter will see the Watch generating higher revenues than the highest quarter for the iPod. ((That was in Q4 2007 when iPod managed $4 billion.))
In terms of yearly unit sales it may take longer. The biggest year for iPod units was 2008 when about 55 million iPods shipped. Watch is now running at about 16million. If it could sustain 30% growth then it would take until 2022. 40% growth would mean 2021 and 50% 2020.
It’s not easy to predict growth but my bet remains that Watch will get there eventually becoming the third most popular Apple product. Perhaps even second.
Overtaking the iPod is quite an achievement considering that the iPod was once synonymous with Apple itself. Although Watch may overcome iPod, Apple may never be known as the Watch company. That’s perhaps for the best. I’ve noted before that Apple was once seen as the Apple II company, became the Mac company then the iPod company. Now of course it is thought of as the iPhone company though it’s no more that than it ever was any of the other things.
