CIRP (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners) has been tracking data on the rate at which iPhone users upgrade their smartphones to new models since 2014. Previously, the tendency was to increase the service life before purchasing a newer version.
This "trend" was disrupted by COVID, when owners of not so old iPhones showed a greater desire to upgrade their devices. The next two years minimally returned the previous dynamics, but 2024 slightly changed the statistics.
Thus, according to CIRP, 33% of users who updated their iPhone had been using it for three years or more, 30% for up to three years, 27% for up to two years, and 9% for less than a year. (However, they lost 1% somewhere, but it won't play a major role.)
For comparison, in 2023, these shares were 36, 33, 24, and 7 percent, respectively. In fact, this indicates that buyers of new iPhone models last year slightly accelerated the pace of updating their smartphones. And the figures were very similar in 2020, when mass lockdowns began.
CIRP did not give a specific reason this time:
A range of factors may help explain it, including ongoing deals from carriers and continuing incentives to upgrade a previous phone around two years after it was purchased, even for those with longer installment purchase agreements.
However, they also noted that the overall slowdown in iPhone sales is more likely to indicate that the current trend has been reversed by Apple's "most loyal" smartphone users, who tend to upgrade more frequently.