iPhone 11 line-up accounts for 66% of U.S. iPhone sales during the March quarter

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), has released its analysis of the results from its research on Apple for the fiscal quarter that ended March 29, 2020.

CIRP finds that the new iPhone 11 and 11 Pro/Pro Max models accounted for 66% of U.S. iPhone sales during the period. iPhone 11 accounted for 37% of U.S. iPhone sales during the quarter.

“iPhone 11 is the dominant model in the lineup,” says Josh Lowitz, CIRP partner and co-founder. “Not surprisingly, it took the place of last year’s iPhone XR as the most popular phone. The more expensive iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max together improved share, relative to the similar top-of-the-line iPhone XS and XS Max a year ago. Notably, the oldest and lowest-priced iPhone 8 and 8 Plus had a relatively small 13% share of sales, weaker than the phones in the same positions last year. The release of the new price leader iPhone SE and likely retirement of the 8 and 8 Plus should alter the sales mix and put even further emphasis on newly released models in the upcoming quarter.”

CIRP estimates the age of the previous phone, among buyers who remained with iOS, had increased significantly in the past four years.

“We see clearly how iPhone owners now keep their phones for increasingly longer time,” says Mike Levin, CIRP partner and co-founder. “In the most recent quarter, 28% of buyers kept their old phone for three years or more, compared to only 12% four years ago. A steady high single-digit percentage of iPhone buyers upgrade their phones each year. So, the good news for Apple is, consumers increasingly buy mostly the newest, more expensive phones. But, they now keep those phones for a much longer time, well past the typical two years from a few years ago. This slows the upgrade cycle and reducing unit demand in a saturated market.”

CIRP bases its findings on its survey of 500 US Apple customers that purchased an iPhone, iPad, Mac computer, or Apple Watch in the January-March 2020 period.