Why iPhone X fails to win some Apple loyalists

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iphone x
The iPhone X is the new Apple flagship. But some like their old iPhones just fine.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

A Piper Jaffray survey of iPhone users who did not upgrade to the iPhone X came to a predictable conclusion: Most were satisfied with the performance of their current model and many find the X too expensive.

However, the financial services firm predicts Apple will coax some upgrades out of these users with a line of new iPhone models this fall, one of which is expected to be more affordable.

News of the survey of 1,500 users was reported on the Apple 3.0 blog by respected tech writer Phillip Elmer-DeWitt, who said he received an email with the survey results.

The email contained a note by Piper Jaffray’s Michael Olson to clients. In it, Olson said 31 percent balked at the $1,000-plus price tag on the iPhone X.

Forty-four percent listed their “iPhone works fine” as the top reason. Another 8 percent said they prefer a larger screen. The remaining survey participants did not upgrade for other unspecified reason.

“We anticipate a wider array of new form factor devices, similar to iPhone X, will launch in late fall,” Olson told clients. “While we have no direct knowledge of Apple’s launch plans for next year, we expect a lower priced X-gen option (potentially the current iPhone X with a price cut and/or an X ‘Lite’) and a Plus X-gen model.”

Sales of iPhones were actually down 1.24 percent, according to Apple’s quarterly earnings report. Apple still sold 77.3 million iPhones during the holiday season and the first part of January and saw revenues climb nearly 12 percent, an indication many users bought an iPhone X despite the cost.

Though he did not say how many of those units sold were iPhone X, Apple CEO Tim Cook said sales of the X “surpassed our expectation and has been our top-selling iPhone every week since it shipped in November.”

Olson said his firm expects a “super-long” cycle of users migrating “to X-gen devices over a multi-year period.”

Source: Philip Elmer-DeWitt’s Apple 3.0

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