iPhone shipments collapse by 44 per cent

Shipments of the iPhone fell by almost 44 per cent during the first quarter of 2016, as fears of "peak iPhone" translated into a huge slowdown in purchases of new handsets.

The Daily Telegraph picks up a report from market research firm TrendForce showing that between January and March, Apple shipped around 42 million iPhones to retailers – a dramatic decrease on the 75 million units sent during the fourth quarter of 2015 and down more than ten million compared to this time last year.

The paper adds that Apple claims the slowdown is due to high market saturation. The number of first time iPhone buyers is beginning to dwindle, a fact not helped by a perception that last year's iPhone 6S is "deemed too similar" to the 2016 iPhone 6.

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Customers are also upgrading their handsets less frequently in the past and emerging markets such as China have not been the pot at the end of the rainbow as initially expected.

In for a particular bashing was Apple's latest handset, the iPhone SE. Marketed as the entry level iPhone and a mid-range handset across the smartphone market, it faces "severe price competition from Chinese-branded products" and Apple may only ship 15 million units this year.

According to Fortune, the tech giant's share of the smartphone market is now 14.9 per cent, down from the 19.9 per cent hold it had in the first quarter of 2015.

It means Samsung has increased its lead. The South Korean brand now has a 27.8 per cent share.

Overall, Apple is expected to ship 213 handsets in 2016 – a ten per cent drop compared to the previous year.

According to the New York Post, most analysts are betting on the iPhone 7 in September to take up the slack, pushing the early alarming figures up to something more comfortable.

However, not everyone is convinced. Well respected and informed analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, of KGI Securities, has already warned that the iPhone 7 could "underwhelm" consumers ahead of a bigger, more spectacular iPhone release in 2017.