Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) says that two factors drive iPhone financial performance: model mix and storage upgrades. With that in mind, in a new report the research group asks, “Are iPhone buyers finally ready to rely on the cloud?”
Apple offers two or three storage upgrade options for each iPhone model, with upcharges ranging from $100 to $500. They add significant profit to a sale, as the prices for added storage far exceed the cost of a bigger storage chip, notes CIRP.
For most models, the base storage level is 128GB. For iPhone 16 Pro Max, the base storage level is 256GB, and for iPhone SE, base storage is 64GB. For the newest and legacy flagship models, buyers can upgrade to 512GB. iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max offer up to 1TB and the iPhone SE tops out at 256GB.
CIRP says that storage upgrades have powered revenues for many years, and changes in that uptake rate are important to Apple’s financial results. In the most recent quarter, 44% of iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max buyers upgraded from base storage, down from 48% for iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max buyers in the similar year-ago quarter. Among buyers of the base iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, 42% purchased upgraded storage models, also down from the similarly situated iPhone 15 and 15 Plus (48%) in the prior year quarter. a greater percentage of buyers of the legacy iPhone models paid for upgraded storage in the December 2024 quarter than did in the December 2023 quarter.
From the CIRP report: The decline in the storage upgrade percentage for Pro/Pro Max and Base/Plus buyers is a bit of a headwind for Apple. Buyers of those top-of-the-line, newest models seem to have figured out that the base level of storage is really enough. With ubiquitous high speed cellular and WiFi connections, relying on the cloud for streaming, off-phone storage, and backup is truly practical at this point.
It appears that base levels of storage have grown as fast or faster than users’ needs. The iOS operating system and a reasonable library of apps no longer crowds out personal photo, video, and music storage as it did on 32GB and even 64GB phones.
