The iPhone XS was the exact same price as the X and that sold plenty fine. It wasn't the price as his letter points out, much to the dismay of many people.

It could be a slightly lesser effect; people were willing to buy the S models of previous iPhones, even though the changes weren't that big on the surface, because the price was lower, however when the phone is so expensive, people wait for a bigger change before buying a new phone. The iPhone S was a gigantic change relative to all other new models of iPhone; the Xs is mostly more of the same.

Or that might not be the reason, I don't know enough to analyze the situation by far. I just don't think we should rule out the extreme price increase as a potential partial explanation.

The people willing to pay that price already have an iPhone X, and not enough of them are willing to pay it a second time for a minor revision.

The entire installed base doesn't upgrade every single year. There are years of people upgrading to the X form factor left.

The entire installed base is not willing to pay these prices, as Apple have discovered.

I think that's the key. I've upgraded every year for many years, but I just wasn't compelled to do it this year. I love my X, and it's still working great! I fully expect to upgrade next year.

That's not true. Users usually upgrade in cohorts. Not everyone upgrades every year and those upgrade cycles are getting longer industry-wide as Apple and others have acknowledged repeatedly.

What you said doesn't contradict him/her. As an X user, XS and XS Max are very minor upgrades and are absolutely not worth the 1450 - 1500 EUR of price.

But the people I know who switched from 6S / 7 are very much happy with their decision to buy an XS.

You just described me. I am still tempted because I want a bigger screen (I read a lot on my phone) but I cannot justify the ~1450 EUR price that the XS Max at 256GB storage sits at around here in Eastern Europe.

Agreed - This is what their strategy overlooked. Lineup needs to exceed expectations to justify price increase y/y, but revisions are increasingly minor since the 7 lineup.

I would say as far back as the iPhone 6.

This

I'd say the premium price is only worth the gap between competition. Status item can only do so much.

Do we have iPhone XS sales figures?

Some emerging markets (e.g. Malaysia, Vietnam) generated record revenue. It was China in specific that underperformed and recent economic numbers for China are also underperforming (GDP growth during the September quarter was the second lowest in the last 25 years).

Rich countries have had it too easy to flex, now they too have to take a loan to show their wealth and place in the hierarchy.

They are self-competing. An iPhone 6 is good enough for me for a fraction of the price. The problem sadly is their older products are of good quality, so there is less obsolescence there. The sad bit is that if they made crappier phones they'd sell more of the new ones.

I agree that the new phones are too expensive (the price of the XS has got me hanging onto my iPhone 7 for another year), but it sounds like the "emerging markets" fail was mostly China. But the issue is that China is a huge market, emerging or not.