“At least in the US the discard rate, i.e. number of phones being discarded over number of new phones is about 50% (56% on average over seven quarters),” Horace Deidu reports for Asymco.
“It’s a rate I find surprising because I expected more of the phones to be re-used,” Deidu reports. “But more surprising is that it leads to some surprising and possibly implausible behavior at AT&T.”
“If you look at the last three quarters, you can see that Verizon activations are very nearly equal to the increase in install base,” Deidu reports. “As all Verizon users are new, they are certainly not replacing iPhones, so the green bars next to the yellow bars imply that all those new users are Verizon users. But that means that all the activations through AT&T were to replace existing phones and that AT&T only added a bit more than one million iPhone users in nine months.”
Deidu reports, “In quarters prior to Verizon’s launch, the AT&T discard rate was a modest 60% on average and after Verizon launch it went to 81%.”
Much more in the full article, including the usual excellent charts and graphs, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Might have to actually look at the full article to figure out what in the hell he is talking about.
Nah.
I hear Windows Phone 7.5 Mango phones launched today in the US. Can someone please post photos of the lines forming outside of the Microsoft stores?. I am out of the country and haven’t been able to catch up on the frenzy! It must be madness!!! http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2011/11/07/new-windows-phone-7-5-mango-smartphones-hit-the-market/
Sure; here you go:
+ ∞
Best one in a long time!
Thanks
Of the 4 iPhones no longer in use in my household, two are serving as iPod touches for children, and two were sold to a co-worker to be used in another country. Off the grid, yes, but not discarded.
Good points. I just sold my wife’s 3G 8 gb iPhone, for $130, to a fellow who was planning to give it to a friend in South Vietnam. In a country where the middle class earns $6 a day sewing Nike sneakers for us, “He will be like a king with this iPhone,” the fellow told me. The iPhone is a phenomenally valuable device, and only a completely unfettered idiot would actually dispose of a functional unit. Let’s face it: When was the last time you bought a product where the box itself had resale value?
Yes, he’s got a funny definition of the word “discarded”. What he’s actually talking about is the number of replacers, upgraders and contract renewers.
I agree with Thryll… Is it just me or is this article with the three different style graphs just too much information…
I think it would have been better and easier to understand if the results had just been delivered as text. Just as long as Apple keeps selling tons of iPhones, who cares about the other stuff ?
Too dense for me. A jumble of words that are poorly constructed that do not give meaning to the context in which they are written. In other words I had trouble discerning what he had to say. And what was the point of the article that could not be summed in one sentence. iPhone users replace their phone with another iPhone.
Whew. And I was beginning to think it was the quart of rum I had for breakfast.
Only a quart – cutting back, are ya?
Maybe you need a bit of a banana beer chaser!
I can’t be bothered to read the article because I’m not bothered enough, but do any of these articles ever mention how many customers the networks have lost? It’s all well and good activating x million new iPhone customers, but if you’ve lost way more to other companies elsewhere it’s all pretty meaningless. AT&T are bound to have put on fewer iPhone customers as they had most of them in the first place.
It seems a similar story to the whole shipped/sold thing. Ultimately, profit is surely the most important thing.
Just sold my 3GS to help pay for my 4S…
I’ve never heard of a “discarded” iPhone. I have heard of abandoned Android phones (by the manufacturers).
Our iPhones get handed down: first to our kids, then when we hand down the next ones, they pass the older ones on to friends or cousins. Some are used as PayGo phones, others as iPod Touches. These are off the grid, but not in a landfill, as the article almost suggests. If I even thougt twice about using a buy back program or Gazelle.com, my kids would be really disappointed.
50% discard rate? That’s only half of the rate that this journalist’s research should be discarded.
With iPhones it’s not being discarded but recycled. Android phones are not being recycled but go directly into landfills.
When I upgrade my iPhone, the old one doesn’t get discarded. It just turns into an iPod touch.
When my wife upgraded to an iPhone 4, her BlackBerry WAS discarded.