Older model iPhones remain popular
Apple is poised to announce its quarterly earnings today and everyone is wondering how many iPhones and iPads the company sold. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) took a close look at the iPhone market and broke sales down by device.
According to CIRP's survey data and reported by GigaOM, Apple iPhone sales are shifting away from the newer model and towards the older ones. In previous years, the new models grabbed the lion's share of sales (>70 percent) and the older models accounted for a small portion. A few months after the iPhone 4S launched (April 2012), the iPhone 4S was the dominant model with 73 percent of all iPhone sales. The iPhone 4 grabbed a small 22 percent of all iPhone sales, while the iPhone 3GS sat at 5 percent.
This year (March 2013), though, the iPhone 5 represents only 53 percent of all iPhones sold worldwide in the first three months of this year. The older iPhone 4S accounted for 33 percent and the even older iPhone 4 grabbed 14 percent of iPhone sales in that same time period.
A similar trend is seen in the iPad with legacy models grabbing a larger chunk of the sales than has been seen in previous years. GigaOM attributes this trend to budget-conscious consumers who still find the older, but cheaper iOS devices attractive.
(ed. note: fixed the last line of the second paragraph to reflect the iPhone 3GS at 5 percent, instead of the erroneous 4 percent figure originally cited in the article)
