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A. marginal B. personal C. sliding D. promise E. counted F. gaps G. profits H. distributed I. relief J. maturing K. leveling |
Bad News for Apple; Good News for Humanity
When Apple cut its revenue estimate(收益预期) for the last quarter of 2018 because of unexpectedly slow sales of iPhones, markets trembled. The company's share price, which had been for months, fell by a further 10% on January 3rd, the day after the news came out. Apple's suppliers' shares were also hit.
Analysts assume that the number of smartphones sold in 2018 will be slightly lower than in 2017, the industry's first ever annual decline. All this is terrible news for investors who had on continued growth. But step back and look at the bigger picture. That smartphone sales have peaked, and seem to be off at around 1.4billion units a year, is good news for humanity. The slowdown is actually the result of market saturation (饱和), which hits Apple the hardest because, despite a relatively small market share (13% of smartphone users), it captures almost all of the industry's . But Apple's pain is humanity's gain. The fact that the benefits of these magical devices are now so widely is something to be celebrated.
Now many phones are used for longer than three years, often as hand-me-downs. Replacement cycles are lengthening as new models offer only improvements. So even with flat sales, the longer between upgrades mean people who already have phones benefit. For all but the most addicted device fans, the slowing pace of upgrades comes as a welcome .
Does that mean innovation is slowing? No. As computers become smaller, still more and closer to people's bodies, many technicians expect that wearable devices, from smart watches to AR headsets, will be the next big thing. Even so, finding another product with the scope of the smartphone is a tall order. The smartphone holds its as the device that will make computing and communications worldwide. The recent slowing of smartphone sales is bad news for the industry, obviously. But for the rest of humanity it is a welcome sign that a transformative technology has become almost universal.
