Apple
4 min read
Apple’s iPhone Air Is a Marketing Win and a Sales Flop
Jason Purdy wanted to like his new iPhone Air.
Raised in Apple’s AAPL -0.48%decrease; red down pointing triangle hometown of Cupertino, Calif., and later an Apple senior product manager, Purdy said he loves to see innovative product design from tech companies. So he made an Apple store appointment to buy the new, ultrathin smartphone the day it went on sale.
Within a month, he returned it.
He found it hard to have speakerphone calls and listen to music. And the photos he took at his early October wedding came out noticeably worse than ones his brother took on a new iPhone 17 Pro.
“The performance wasn’t quite there. Across the board they’re sacrificing all these things,” said Purdy. The Air was very pleasurable to hold and impressed his friends, but didn’t work as his primary device, he said.
The Air is billed as Apple’s thinnest smartphone yet. Just one in 10 iPhone 17 buyers in the U.S. opted for it in the early weeks of sales, according to one consumer survey. Some users have complained online about the Air’s weaker camera, sound quality, battery and price tag. Other iPhone 17s have been back-ordered up to three weeks while the Air is available right away, according to Apple’s website.
The iPhone Air, second from left, is billed as Apple’s thinnest smartphone yet. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg News
Apple took steps to scale back production of the Air not long after the launch, according to people familiar with its supply chain.
The lukewarm reception for the Air is the only blemish on what is shaping up to be a blowout holiday quarter for Apple, thanks to more popular iPhone 17 models. It demonstrates Apple’s challenge in innovating around its flagship product and raises questions about whether Apple’s next form factor—a foldable iPhone—will resonate.
Android phone makers already offer foldable devices, but they are niche products thus far due to their high price and novel shape.
Apple has been hungry to find new ways to power sustainable growth for the iPhone. Unit volumes for the smartphone were stagnant from 2021 to 2024, according to research firm IDC. The Air is the company’s most innovative smartphone design since the iPhone X in 2017.
“Any time they do these nichey kinds of phones, they just don’t take off,” said Michael Levin of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, referencing the iPhone “Plus” models that the Air replaced, as well as the discontinued iPhone Mini models from a few years ago.
The research firm’s consumer surveys found that 29% of U.S. iPhone buyers in the September quarter bought one of the new iPhone 17 models, a big uptick compared with last year when 20% of U.S. iPhone buyers bought a new iPhone 16. This year, there was great interest in the Pro and Pro Max models, the firm said, but the Air got little traction.
Some analysts said the Air represented a marketing win for the company and was also an important steppingstone for developing the architecture of a foldable iPhone, likely with two thin halves that open up to a large screen.
“The Air was a marketing hit rather than a sales hit,” said Nabila Popal, an analyst with research firm IDC. It “created a buzz around the launch that we haven’t seen in years.”
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. On Apple’s earnings call last week, Chief Executive Tim Cook said Apple is “thrilled with how iPhone’s been received.”
An engineering marvel, the iPhone Air is roughly the thickness of a winter wetsuit yet packs faster computing power than Intel’s desktop Mac chips from just a few years ago.
To shrink the device, Apple compromised on features. The Air has one speaker at the top of the device, so videos lack the surround-sound quality of other iPhones that have speakers at both ends.
Its single rear camera lacks the telephoto lens of the Pro models and the ultrawide lens in the entry-level iPhone 17, which costs $200 less. The cheaper device also comes with a longer-lasting battery and two speakers.
Apple set the Air’s price $100 higher than the 16-Plus model it replaced, potentially boosting profit margins and offsetting tariff costs. But the price tag appears to be an issue for some buyers.
In China, the Air’s price is about $280 higher than that of the entry-level iPhone 17, too expensive to qualify for a major government subsidy program intended to boost consumer spending. The cheaper model qualifies, helping to make it a sales hit in China early on.
Demand for the Air has missed expectations, said Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities who tracks Apple’s supply chain. He predicts an 80% production capacity cut by early next year.
News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.
Write to Rolfe Winkler at Rolfe.Winkler@wsj.com and Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com
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