Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max 5G, iPhone 11 each had leading 23% share of iOS handset sales last quarter

Apple is scheduled to release its third fiscal quarter results on July 27th and the company will have a tough time repeating the results it had for the second fiscal quarter. For the latter period, iPhone revenue jumped 65.5% year-over-year and iPad sales soared 79%. This will be the first quarterly results to include the M1 powered iPad Pro (2021) which should make for some interesting results.

Also, with Apple's stock jumping to an all-time high this week, investors are betting that the tech giant has some really strong numbers to announce on the 27th. Meanwhile, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) released today its analysis of how the iPhone 12 series fared during the three months running from April through June. The data was collected from a survey of 500 Apple customers who purchased an iPhone or an iPad, a Mac computer, or an Apple Watch during the April-June 2021 period.

The research firm says that the four 2020 iPhone models (iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max) made up 63% of iPhone sales in the U.S. during Apple's fiscal third quarter this year. During the quarter, the share of iPhone sales rung up by the physical and online Apple Stores rose sharply on an annual basis from 16% to 27% while U.S. carriers' share of iPhone sales dropped from 77% to 66% year-over-year. And during the same quarter in 2020, the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max contributed 65% of U.S. iPhone sales.

Josh Lowitz, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder said, "Apple did very well as it emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased consumer spending correlated with consumers shifting to more expensive iPhone models as they retired older phones and shopped more at Apple's own retail locations to buy those iPhones. As a consequence, we estimate that US-WARP (Weighted Average Retail Price), the analogue to Average Selling Price that Apple no longer discloses, rose in the quarter."

As more expensive iPhone models were purchased during Apple's fiscal third quarter, the Weighted Average Retail Price rose to $869. On a sequential basis, that is up slightly from the quarter that ended in March 2021, and up sharply from the quarter that ended in June 2020.

Mike Levin, CIRP Partner and Co-Founder, weighed in with his findings. He says, "For the first time in many quarters, consumers traded in somewhat newer phones. We ask consumers about the age of their previous phone, and in the quarter, we saw the share of phones that were three years old or greater decrease. In the quarter, it looks like iPhone buyers traded in fewer older phones and opted for more expensive iPhone models as they upgraded."

We should point out, although you probably know this by now, that the iPhone 12 line is the first from Apple to support 5G connectivity. Interestingly, the two top selling iPhone models in the quarter, both with 23% of sales, were the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the iPhone 11. The weakest selling models, both with a 5% share of iOS handsets rung up during the period, were the iPhone 12 mini (no surprise there) and the iPhone XR.

Perhaps the most interesting data coming from the survey showed that the phones being traded in by consumers had declined sharply for the first time in four years. Slightly less than 30% of those surveyed said that they had traded in a phone that was three years old or more compared to the approximately 35% who said that they did so during the previous quarter. During the fiscal third quarter of last year, roughly 33% said that they traded in a phone that was three years old or more.

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