Two Surveys On How The iPhone 7 Is Doing

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) released a study of US based iPhone sales for the June quarter (based on 500 US customers) which showed the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus capturing a higher share of sales than the March quarter and doing better on a percentage basis than the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus did a year ago. It calculates that the 7 and 7 Plus accounted for 81% of US based iPhone sales vs. 66% for the 6s and 6s Plus a year ago.

Josh Lowitz, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder said “Sales of legacy models appear to have finally diminished, after showing sustained strength in recent quarters. In the year ago June 2016 quarter, legacy models accounted for 34% of iPhones sold, compared to 19% in this quarter.”

Mike Levin, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder added “Share of the larger-format 7 Plus and 6S Plus models also improved relative to the June 2016 quarter, although it was lower than the March 2017 quarter,”. A higher percentage of Plus sales helps the iPhone’s average selling price or ASP. For the June quarter the 7 Plus will help vs. last year’s ASP but should be a slight drag vs. the March quarter.

What may be the most important portion of CIRP’s report is that Android switchers to iPhones increased to 20% from the three previous quarters 14% to 17% added Lowitz. If Apple can continue this trend it will help investors feel more comfortable that it can grow its iPhone install base vs. just harvesting its install base.

Fiksu shows the iPhone 7 uptake slower than larger install base impacts this

Fiksu tracks iPhone active devices on a worldwide basis (hourly sample of 10 million events that is weighted to the US and Europe) which shows the uptake on each iPhone model post-launch. When you look at the iPhone 7 (yellow line) vs. the 5, 5c/5s (when combined had the highest %), 6 and 6s the 7 has had the slowest growth of recent non-Plus and SE models (when adding the 5c to the 5s).

Since Fiksu’s data is based on usage of active devices it isn’t too surprising that the iPhone 7’s uptake is slower than previous models since the install base of iPhones is larger then the earlier versions. One takeaway is that since the slope of the line is similar to previous models the 7 should see similar seasonality and that all the rumors about the upcoming iPhone 8 may not be impacting it as much as feared.