Survey: 48% of iPhone owners intend to upgrade within year

That’s up from 25% in June 2017.

From a note by Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster that landed on my desk Wednesday:

• Heading into next month’s iPhone announcement, we surveyed 530 U.S. consumers regarding their intent to purchase the upcoming phones.

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• This survey showed a surprisingly high intent to upgrade, suggesting 48% of current iPhones owners intent to upgrade to a newer iPhone in the next year, compared to 25% in June of last year.
• This 48% is an outlier, and therefore should be tempered (intent to buy vs. actual purchase conversion varies cycle to cycle), but the survey is nonetheless a positive indicator of upcoming iPhone demand.
• 19% of Android users surveyed indicated they plan on switching to an iPhone in the next year, compared to 12% last year.
• Survey’s bottom line: there is greater interest in this upcoming iPhone cycle than we had anticipated.
• The bigger picture: iPhone is entering a period of stability (0% to 5% unit growth for the next several years) driven by 805m+ active iPhones with a high (90%) retention rate. Assuming a 3.5-year upgrade cycle and a 90% retention rate implies 207m iPhones sold each year, slightly below the Streets 219m expected in FY18 and FY19.

My take: That’s quite a pop between 2017 and 2018, when the millennium iPhone was the talk of the town. I wonder how much is iPhone X buzz, how much Apple’s upgrade program and how much Loup Ventures’ margin of error.

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