Posted on Sep 14, 2021 at 7:18 PMUpdated Sep 14, 2021, 7:27 PM
With the release of the iPhone 13, Apple had to take an important step: that of the maximum storage capacity on board its devices. For three years and the release of the iPhone XS, the best equipped models of the firm at the apple had 512 GB of space, to save photos, videos and mobile applications. This time around, Apple could double the bet and offer up to 1TB of storage to its customers.
For Apple, this is not a differentiator. The other manufacturers are often better off when it comes to storage. Samsung was offering a version of its Galaxy S10 with a 1TB memory chip almost three years ago. And high-end Android models have long since abandoned the basic 64GB version – which was still the standard for iPhone 12.
Not to mention that Apple does not offer external storage on its iPhones – while competitive devices often allow you to add a microSD memory card to boost the original capacities.
Easy profit
But increasing the memory of phones is a pressing demand from users. As the cameras become more efficient, the photos – and especially the videos – stored on the terminal increasingly require more storage space. The same applies to mobile games which, benefiting from the increased performance of smartphone processors, integrate more high-definition content and – consequently – require more space to install.
Apple is therefore encouraged to offer additional storage capacity to its users. This is all the more so since the manufacturer is making good profits at the same time. An iPhone 12 equipped with a 256 GB chip is for example billed 120 euros more expensive than the basic 64 GB model.
The delta is even more important for the Pro version of 512 GB, sold 230 euros more than the version of 128 GB. However, the price of the component as such changes very little. The 64 GB memory chip costs less than twenty dollars. That of 512 GB barely a few tens of dollars more. The difference with the price finally paid by the customer constitutes a profit as easy as it is substantial for Apple.
Already, in 2018, when the Californian giant introduced the 512 GB version of the iPhone XS, an IHS analyst Markit explained that the operation required almost no adaptation work on the part of Apple. “Storage is one of their levers to generate more revenue and it is arguably the most lucrative feature of the iPhone,” pointed out Wayne Lam.
141 GB average storage
The formula still works just as well. Because many Apple customers are tempted by devices with better memory than the basic version. According to CounterPoint Research, iPhones sold in Q4 2020 averaged 141 GB of storage. That’s almost 50% more than the average for Samsung or Xiaomi devices – which sell a lot of entry-level or mid-range models, unlike Apple.
As for customers who are reluctant to break the bank to inflate the capacities of their iPhone, Apple naturally has a solution: sell them cloud storage at 9.99 euros per month for 2 TB of online space for photos and films. that wouldn’t fit on their phone. ICloud revenue contributes to the extraordinary performance of Apple’s services arm – which has generated $ 50 billion in revenue over the past nine months, and where margins are… twice as high as for smartphones.
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