The bargain-hunting website TechBargains.com surveyed users about their likelihood of buying the new iPhone when it’s released. Their infographic is nice (seriously, check it out), but what I find more interesting is what those percentages look like in terms of real numbers, when combined with other data on American consumers.
Of those surveyed who don’t already own a smartphone, 32% said they are planning to buy the new iPhone. According to comScore, 234m (million) Americans age 13 and older use mobile devices (cell phones of all kinds), and of those, 114m owned smartphones. This leaves 120m American mobile device users who don’t own a smartphone. If the TechBargains survey is an accurate representation of the American public, 32% of those 114m Americans – a staggering 38m – will be buying the new iPhone when it’s released. To put that into perspective, in Apple’s blowout quarter at the end of 2011, after record sales of the 4S, they sold 15 million iPhones in the U.S., including the discounted iPhone 4 and free-with-contract 3GS. In that same quarter, Apple sold a total of 37m iPhones worldwide, whereas the 38m in sales is an estimate for U.S.-only sales.
While there’s no way to determine how many current iPhone users have any particular model, we do know that 64% of iPhone 4S, 74% of iPhone 4, and 71% of 3GS owners surveyed said they plan to upgrade to the new iPhone. Those aren’t far off from one another, so let’s just take the average: 70%. According to comScore, Apple had 33.4% of the total (114m) smartphone market, or about 38m; so at 70%, that comes to 26.6m current iPhone users who plan to buy the new iPhone.
Of Android users surveyed, 22% said they will buy the new iPhone when it is released. According to comScore, Android commands 52.2% of all (114m) U.S. smartphone users, which comes to 59.5m Android users. If 22% of those buy the new iPhone, that’s 13m new iPhone sales from Android switchers.
And finally, Blackberry: comScore has RIM at 9.5% of all Smartphones, or 10.8m. If 38% of them buy the new iPhone as the survey predicts, that’s an additional 4.1m iPhones.
Totals:
38m Non-smartphone owners
26.6m iPhone users
13m Android users
4.1m Blackberry users
For a total of 81.7 million U.S. consumers who plan to buy the new iPhone when it is released. That’s more than all current Android users combined.
According to the survey, 64% of iPhone 4S users plan to upgrade, with another 19% undecided. Considering the 4S came less than a year ago, and the vast majority of owners are still under a 2-year contract, either they’re not aware that they would need to pay full (unsubsidized) price, they’re planning to pay to break their contract, or they’re ok with just paying full price. Perhaps a number of those 4S owners are planning to sell their old iPhone back to Apple and use the money to partially fund the full-price new iPhone.
Not only did 22% of Android users say they WILL buy the new iPhone, another 27% said they’re undecided. That means a full half of all Android users surveyed are considering the new iPhone.
Taking into consideration those who said they are undecided, there is a large pool of respondents who are considering buying the new iPhone when it’s released. Using the same math as above, those come to 42m non-smartphone owners, 7.1m current iPhone owners, 16.1m Android owners, and 3.5m Blackberry owners, for a total of 68.7m U.S. consumers who are undecided as to whether or not they’ll buy the new iPhone when it is released.
Of course these numbers should be taken with a big grain of salt, and used only as a general guideline as to how many U.S. cell phone users may buy the new iPhone when it’s released.
Disclosure: I am a casual trader, and am long AAPL.
http://www.techbargains.com/infographics/iphone-predictions
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/9/comScore_Reports_July_2012_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/9/3232018/confidential-apple-samsung-sales-numbers-trial
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/apple-will-buy-back-and-recycle-your-iphone-4s
http://seekingalpha.com/article/855451-take-a-bite-out-of-apple
http://www.statista.com/statistics/12743/worldwide-apple-iphone-sales-since-3rd-quarter-2007/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405456,00.asp
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