“When Apple announced earnings this week, one of the surprising revelations shared by Tim Cook was that only 40% of iPhone owners have upgraded to a larger-screen iPhone,” Mark Rogowsky reports for Forbes.
“Cook has two plans to address the hundreds of millions of iPhone loyalists who are still sporting smaller, older models. First comes in March, with the iPhone 5se, a nice upgrade to the 5s,” Rogowsky reports. “But the second is more intriguing: A series of upgrades to the flagship models that Apple believes will be compelling enough that people won’t be able to resist.”
“If things work out as Apple hopes, it could reignite growth in iPhone sales — which plateaued in the most recent quarter and even Apple expects to be down numerically for the three-month period ending in March — and get people hooked on Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program,” Rogowsky reports. “It’s a safe bet that Apple plans on selling more iPhones in each of the next 3 years than they did in 2015, even with the first-quarter slowdown they’ve forecast for 2016. The question is will the new offerings be compelling enough to make that happen.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There is so much room for improvement to iPhone, from strength of materials, to cameras, I/O ports, charging methods, processors, battery life, physical button removal, display technology, Siri capabilities, etc. that the sky is the limit!
Eventuallly, unless you are willing to purchase outright, the carriers (or Apple lease) will lock you into a leasing plan regardless. Then you will be more or less forced to upgrade.
I’m in the Apple lease program because I like to upgrade every year. I’m not forced in any way to upgrade nor is anyone else forced to upgrade. The program is a choice; get it now!
Like I’m not hooked already.
Plan to get iPhone users to upgrade:
1) Design phones with non-user replaceable batteries and non-expandable memory. And make the cost of extra memory at purchase time unreasonably expensive so that what they buy will only be temporarily adequate. Check.
2) Continually add bloat to operating system to ensure that older processors can’t keep up. Check.
Stick to you samdung phone Georgie Porgie.
Yep. The same playbook that MS used on its victims – except now Apple’s got barbed wire on its walled garden.
Going to stick with my 5s as long as possible even though it has some issues (no matter what I do, there is no way it will notify me by sound when I have a text message, many total resets, operating system upgrades, etc.) but I can live with that because it will be paid for soon. And I am moving back toward OS X compared to iOS everyday for work and productivity reasons, so ………whatever.
The reason why more have no upgraded to the larger phone is because it cost too much.
For the most part, buying a phone, is like buying a car. Most now buy their phone on time. They just got finish paying for the thing now they would like to enjoy it without the extra cost of having to pay for it.
Stick to samdung Bobbie boy.
You certainly put other choices in my mind. Yeah, you have helped me decide. Snobs like you, birds of a feather, I don’t want to pay more than 189.00 for a phone. So, samsung is out too. To hell, I say, with these high phones, I’m done. Somebody, some company will meet my need.
Two years to pay for a phone. No, No, NO!
You will get what you pay for, Bob. Enjoy!
That’s the idea. Too bad you won’t. And don’t!
Maybe you missed apple’s profit numbers.
I would love to upgrade but the cost of the iPhone I want – the large 6s with 64 GB is almost $1000 after adding the sales tax.
There are plenty of cheap, even free, older iPhones that work perfectly well for those who do not want to spend a lot of money on a phone. I put a new battery in my 3GS for $5 and it still runs fine. It still works fine for phone calls, text messages, music, and even some “light” internet work …though chip is slow. Personally, I would rather use an older iPhone than a new, inexpensive Samsung/Android device for reasons of security and because it is wrong to pay thieves for stolen property.
But the device is not the whole story. For people who do not want to spend a lot on their phone, they also need to look critically at what they paying for carrier service. Consider the best and cheapest MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator). As an experiment, I bought a $10-per-month service from AirVoice Wireless (they use the ATT network), and it has worked well for me for a few years now. (If I use my allowed minutes, I can easily top-up with more online.
For my 6S Plus, I put down $50 on a Pay-As-You-Go plan with AirVoice Wireless. So far, so good. I just try to use Wi-Fi whenever possible.
People who seriously want a good, but inexpensive smartphone and service should consider finding or buying older iPhones, (popping in a new battery, if needed), and buying carrier service from an inexpensive MVNO. They should take their savings and put it away for an emergency, or education, or retirement.
I am not flogging or endorsing AirVoice Wireless. There are other MVNOs. It just happens to be the one I tried. I first read about it on Mr Money Mustache’s blog.
Many Americans live within a few hundred bucks of financial disaster. I wanted to see for myself if my $10/month MVNO service was a feasible option for people who do not (or cannot; or should not!) want to spend a lot on a phone. It is. I am an economist.
Retired. 6S Plus. 3GS. (Both running inexpensive MVNO service.) Sport Watch. 2015 MBP. Go Apple!