Many pundits and analysts have predicted that Apple’s sales are weakening and the company’s decision to refrain from disclosing the number of units sold also indicates the same. However, according to a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, this year’s most affordable iPhone variant — iPhone Xr — has lured more Android users to upgrade to iPhone than last year.
The report says that 16 percent of iPhone buyers upgraded to iPhone 30 days after iPhone Xr was released. This number was 12 percent last year after iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were released in September 2017 and 11 percent when the revolutionary iPhone X was shipped in November 2017.
CIRP’s report states that nearly one-third of the iPhone buyers have bought iPhone Xr which starts at $749. In the U.S., Xr’s sales contributed 32 percent to the total iPhone sales while the combined sales of iPhone Xs and Xs Max contributed 35% to the total sale.
After reports emerged that iPhone is suffering from weaker sales, Apple’s vice president of product marketing Greg Joswiak said that iPhone Xr is the most popular iPhone but did not disclose any sales figure to back up his claims.
CIRP’s co-founder Mike Levin said, “Of course, Apple doesn’t just state plainly its launch strategy. But, based on the pricing and features, we can infer that Apple positioned the iPhone XR to appeal to potential operating systems switchers from Android.”
However, the stats indicated by the CIRP’s report cannot be used for concluding the success of iPhone Xr as this year Apple released its cheaper iPhone variant after its pricier models which is contrary to its previous launch strategies.
