Apple iPhone X: is it nearly dead already or are sales through the roof?

Apple announced it's latest set of financial results yesterday and they seem like good news all round. Quarterly revenues were $61.1 billion, up 16 percent year-on-year, and Tim Cook gleefully saying that not only were overall iPhone revenues up but that, "Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week," during the period. 

However, one analyst begs to differ, and says slowing revenue growth at a key Apple supplier point to Apple winding down production of it's £999 phone. 

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Neil Campling of Mirabaud Securities, quoted by CNBC, says that the company Cognex, which makes key equipment to help with mounting the iPhone X's OLED screen, has seen slowing earnings growth, which could suggest lower orders from Apple. As a result, he concludes, "Apple's iPhone X is over." Don't hold back there, mate! 

Certainly, competition for the iPhone X is fierce with the likes of OnePlus expected to unveil its OnePlus 6 soon at half the price of the iPhone X but with many similar specs. Phones like the Moto G6 are already proving you can have a very slick phone experience without paying top dollar.

Apple itself is widely rumoured to be working on a new iPhone that’s more affordable yet still offers a larger display. It could be Apple’s biggest iPhone yet with a  Galaxy Note-esque 6.5-inch screen, yet a low-for-Apple price of $550. That's about £400 at current exchange rates (although in reality, recent history suggests it will be more like £450-£500 in the UK).

So could this spell the end of the iPhone X? If its manufacture is really so tricky, it seems not impossible that the specific current X will cease to be when the new iPhones arrive in autumn, rather than remaining on sale as has been the case with recent models. 

However, we are fully confident that the technology in it will continue in future iPhones, whether under the X name or not. Apple will surely continue to target those wanting a really premium phone as well as its traditional 'affordable premium' market. 

Apple is expected to release another notch featured phone in 2018 and it seems implausible that Apple would now ditch OLED displays after only using them in one phone. So while the iPhone X may stop gracing our shelves, there will be an iPhone 9, and something very like an iPhone XI to follow, that's for sure.