During Apple’s fiscal third quarter, the three-month period that ended in June, iPhone revenue was $39.67 billion which was a decline of 2.4% on an annual basis and slightly trailed Wall Street estimates. Last week Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, which you might know better as CIRP, reported that the weighted average retail price of the iPhone in the U.S. was $948 at the end of the fiscal third quarter compared to $988 at the end of the fiscal second quarter.
CIRP finds that a change in the mix of models purchased and fewer storage upgrades is pushing U.S. iPhone revenue down
The percentage of U.S. iPhone buyers upgrading their storage each quarter is in a downtrend
Apple needs to figure out why fewer iPhone buyers are paying up to upgrade their storage
At the beginning of this article, we pointed out how the weighted average retail price of the iPhone in the U.S. fell to $948 at the end of the fiscal third quarter compared to the end of the fiscal second quarter. CIRP says that if 25% fewer iPhone buyers decided to spend $100 for a storage upgrade, that would have accounted for $25 of the quarter’s $40 decline in the weighted average retail price of the iPhone in the U.S.