CIRP is out with a report on how iPhone activations compare to Android in the US. The latest data shows a notable drop over the last year bringing Apple’s US smartphone market share of new activations back in time six years.
CIRP shared its new iPhone report on its Substack this morning. The firm notes that while it believes Apple’s installed smartphone base is higher than the recent share of US smartphone activations, the latter has taken a dive.
As shown below, the metric peaked at 40% for Q1 and Q2 in 2023 with Apple seeing a decline to 33% of new smartphone activations in the US as of Q1 2024, says CIRP.
That means 2 out of 3 new smartphone activations in the US are Android devices. Per CIRP’s data, Apple hasn’t seen numbers that low since 2017.
Why have iPhone activations declined?
What’s behind the trend? CIRP believes that an increase in iPhone quality over the last few years along with a decline in new features has contributed to the decline.
Another factor could be that “more transparent phone purchase plans has motivated many smartphone owners to wait a little longer to upgrade from their current phone.” And that may have had a bigger impact on iPhone than Android devices.
More on iPhone:
Top image by Michael Potuck
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