“Your smartphone might say something about your credit-card spending,” Mary Pilon reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Users of Apple’s iPhone spend significantly more on their credit cards than Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Android users, according to data from Pageonce Inc., a financial account aggregator,” Pilon reports. “The average monthly credit card bill was $6,872 for iPhone users, compared to $5,693 for BlackBerry users, $5,330 for Android users and $5,076 for Windows Mobile. The study looked at 275,000 randomly selected accounts from Pageonce Inc. from October 1 to November 1, 2010. The credit card bill reflects new charges from that month, not the revolving balance carried over from month to month.”
Pilon reports, “Previous research from Nielsen Co. has highlighted that iPhone users on average have been an older and wealthier demographic, which could account for higher credit-card spending.”
MacDailyNews Note: Actually, a Forrester study found that iPhone users are younger. 30% of iPhone users in 2008 were of Generation Y, a larger portion than the rest of the smartphone market. iPhone users are more educated and affluent: 49% of iPhone users have a college education and 67% earn more than $70,000 a year.
More info here.
MacDailyNews Take: Like Mac users, iPhone users are also smarter: They don’t settle for inferior knockoffs.
I doesn’t mean we carry more debt, though. It is likely that we simply ‘play the system’ to accumulate more points, miles, cash-back, or gift certificates by charging everything we can to those cards.
An interesting research question is whether more iPhone users pay off those accounts in full every month, compared to inferior phone users. That would obviate the issue of age and wealth, and could be seen as supporting evidence that we are more likely to know the tricks of any given game and to apply strategy to win them.
As off today I don’t have credit card. Pay all of then off one year before the first iPhone came out and more or less told the bank where to go. Been iPhone user from day one . Debt free and mortgage free and yes I do own a house. Only down side online shopping. Basically I got my finances in order just before the stock market went to shit.
Well, on the subject of credit cards, I fall into the (probably relatively small) category of those who don’t carry a balance. I have several of them, for various needs (cashback points, advantageous exchange rates/fees when used abroad, etc). My primary reason for using credit cards is the infinitely easier life when you don’t need cash. I don’t pay a single cent to any of the issuing banks (no fees, no finance charges), so it does not cost me anything. The convenience of carrying plastic, and not cash, should not be underestimated. I cannot even begin to imagine how much more complicated my life would get if I had to rely on cash and cheques for EVERY. SINGLE. TRANSACTION. I make on daily basis.
No more credit cards here. Zero debt. iPhone 4 is my third since since launch day in 2007. I’m also far from being rich. I put my money on things that improve my life, iPhone being one.
Average monthly credit card bill is $5,000 or more? $5,000 a month in new charges?!?
Okay I’m either not understanding the writer, have the WRONG job, or both. Perhaps a couple of billionaires were included in the sample.
Peace.
Predrag has the right way to go in using a
credit card. I too carry no balance and pay
off every month. Use a card as money or
a check not as ‘credit’.
We always had a balance no lower than $5,000 and usually around $10,000 for quite a while. We always paid on time and much higher than the minimum payment. When the economy went south those bastards at Capitol One tripled our interest amount.
We paid them off and cancelled the card. No more credit for us, unless it’s interest free from a store, which is what I did to buy our HDTV and BR player.
Now we use our debit cards from our credit union only. For the most part it’s a case of having the money or not buying. I wish I had done this years ago; it would have cut way down on unnecessary purchases. Screw the banks.
Scary.
Remind me not to use Pageonce.
So they sell statistics to anyone who wants them?
The main goal of life in the 21rst century is to safeguard your identity and your habits and whatever it is that makes you HUMAN.
Another study might find out what total interest rate iPhone users have on those credit cards and compare it to the total interest rate of people who use inferior phones. I suspect the result would be that the inferior phone users pay higher interest rates on their cards than iPhone users do. Again, just more proof that we ‘think different’ or that we are not tied to old ways of thinking; either way, we tend to be earlier adopters and/or progressive.
(I don’t mean politically progressive. Please don’t yell at me about politics.)
I don’t use credit cards at all anymore unless it’s under a 0% interest promotion. Otherwise everything I buy is strictly with my Visa debit card that earns reward points.
My patients must account for the 33% of iPhone owners who make less than $75,000. Most are on welfare.
I don’t have any credit cards and haven’t had any debt for over 5 years, since I was 24. I use a debit card for online stuff. I don’t like owing people money.
Count me as another zero balance iPhone user.
When I buy something… It’s paid off almost immediately.
Been there with the debt, it’s not worth it. I owe money on my car, and my house. Thats it. And that’s all I will ever owe money on.
You mean to tell me that not only do they know my sexual orientation and the positions I prefer but now they know what I pay for it!
Privacy is so 1980s.
I have credit cards but do not carry a balance from month to month. I’m just not into forking over interest that can be used more wisely- like investing in Apple.
I dont even own a iPhone, cant afford one, I have a iTouch. But what that means is that an iPhone in Portugal is to expensive for our way of living. God bless America.
I guess the real meaning of this article is unless your spending $5000-$7000 a month on your credit cards that your a customer Apple isn’t interested in.
That’s ok, the rest of the world manages just fine and I’d rather have friends than I know are friends, and not one’s that are just friends hoping to get something out of me.
Touting rich snobby Apple products in these tough economic times is asking for a group ass-kicking anyways.
A inexpensive linux netbook and a pay as I use cell phone, that’s letting everyone know I share in their economic pain. I keep the Mac hidden in a safe where it belongs.
My wife and I payoff completely each month and use credit cards for convenience and points/discounts. We put almost everything on cards, so our amount seems high & could fit the survey results. We owe only on mortgage, ’til Jan 2016 (then we’ll apply payments to saving for kids’ college).
KillJoy Deluxe / Mark Bizzarro = Moron
Correction: Cheap Moron
My take:
Big credit card spenders buy more fancy gadgets such as iPhones..