Before the iPhone 16, Sales of iPhone 15 Were Steady

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 11, 6:50AM EST

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Before the iPhone 16, Sales of iPhone 15 Were Steady — © 2023 Getty Images / Getty Images News via Getty Images

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The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) iPhone 15’s sales were steady up to the iPhone 16’s release.
That bolstered revenue through a critical period.
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The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 16 was available for sale on September 20. New research shows that in the third quarter, the previous version’s sales were steady just before that release. Many people did not defer their iPhone purchases to wait for the new generation, and investors worried that could have been the case.

According to the Counterpoint Global Handset Model Sales Tracker, the iPhone 15 was the best-selling smartphone globally for the third quarter, with a market share of 3.6%. Next on the list, the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 15 Pro. The 10 best-selling handsets across all manufacturers comprised 19% of the global figure.

Samsung, Apple’s primary rival, had the fourth best-selling smartphone with the Galaxy A15 4G. It was followed on the top five list by the Galaxy A15 5G.

While the research results published on November 7 may seem like old news, the sales trends are critical to Apple. The brand’s success with iPhone 15 models kept it well ahead of Samsung, which has been its challenger for the past decade. There was also evidence of that model’s success in the September quarter, but it was muted. Revenue for the phone was $46.2 billion against $43.8 billion in the same quarter the year before.

Ultimately, the fact that people did not defer purchases as the iPhone 16 launched is a sign of the brand’s strength. With some products, be they cars or smartphones, people do defer purchases while waiting for the new product with its new features. iPhone 15 sales, according to Counterpoint, did not slow. Instead, the phone became a revenue bridge during the new version’s release and just after. Some people may have also waited for the new iOS 18 before buying a new Apple smartphone, which launched well into October.

The iPhone 15 may be “old” now, but it bolstered iPhone sales through a critical period.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.