“More U.S. consumers are buying iPhones from third-party retailers instead of directly from Apple Inc., according to a new report, a shift that could cut into the tech giant’s wide profit margins,” Daisuke Wakabayashi and Jack Nicas report for Dow Jones Business News.
“Consumer Intelligence Research Partners said 11% of U.S. iPhone buyers purchased phones directly from Apple in 2015, down from 16% two years earlier. Over the same period, the share of U.S. iPhones bought at stores and websites operated by wireless carriers rose to 76% from 65%,” Wakabayashi and Nicas report. “The remaining phones were purchased from other retailers, such as Best Buy Co.”
“But the impact on Apple’s bottom line likely has been slight, analysts said. Apple sold roughly 50% more iPhones world-wide in 2015, compared with 2013, suggesting that the number of phones bought directly from Apple increased, though not as fast as the number bought elsewhere,” Wakabayashi and Nicas report. “Moreover, some analysts said that overall Apple benefits from the wider distribution of its devices.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Where do you buy your iPhones, directly from Apple or elsewhere?