• TechCrunch, Wednesday, June 27, 2012 11:52 AM

Just how successful is Apple’s iPhone? Since its debut nearly five years ago, the company that Steve Jobs built has shipped about 250 million iPhones worldwide, which has generated roughly $150 billion in cumulative revenues, according to new estimates from Strategy Analytics. “The figures cover the entire family of iPhone devices -- from the first model released in 2007 through to the most recent iPhone 4S,” notes TechCrunch.

However, the next five years are expected to be far more challenging for Apple and its phones, according to Strategy Analytics. Why? “For one, smartphone market growth is slowing. Android competitors like Samsung are continuing to ramp up their efforts.” Phone carries are also pulling back on the subsidies they have traditionally offered on iPhones -- which are priced at a premium compared to Android handsets, but often get discounted heavily by carriers in exchange for users signing up to big data plans.

Read the whole story at TechCrunch »