Apple CEO Tim Cook’s letter to investors states that the company is expecting a US$9 billion (~RM37.3 billion) loss in revenue. In the letter, Cook says people are replacing batteries more than they are buying iPhones. That said, the same doesn’t seem to apply to Malaysia, at least for the brand as a whole.
Further down in the letter, he says “while we saw challenges in some emerging markets, others set records, including Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and Vietnam.” The letter refers to the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2019, which ended on 29 December.
With that information, it’s safe to assume that a fair number of Apple products were bought in Malaysia during the 11.11 Singles Day shopping festival. While Lazada Malaysia did not share official local numbers with us, Alibaba did show that the Apple brand was the third best-selling brand in Southeast Asia at the end of that day.
This is all the more confusing when the brand was the top-selling mobile phone brand during the Singles Day sale globally. But perhaps this suggests that Malaysians prefer buying new iPhones than have the batteries of older ones replaced.
