Going by survey reports conducted by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners in the month of April, out of all the iPhone users in the US, 73 percent opted for the iPhone 4S, mostly the high-end models. In addition to this, 38 percent of consumers have switched to Apple’s iPhone from having been users of Android or Blackberry. This survey included 7,348 subjects and 521 of them were qualified enough to respond.
Reports suggest an increase in the number of users switching to Apple’s smartphones. The numbers have increased from 29 percent in February to 38 percent in the month of April this year, as mentioned earlier. Consumers are increasingly switching over even more than when Apple first introduced the iPhone 4S during the shopping season in 2011. Back then, 36 percent of users had switched over to Apple’s iPhone from other smartphone platforms.
Apple’s iPhone 4S has gained maximum popularity among consumers; with around 50% of iPhone buyers opting for the 16 GB model. Those looking for more capacity opted for the model with 32GB storage, that is, approximately 34 percent of users. The rest 16 percent of users opted for the 64GB capacity, which is the high end model of the iPhone 4S.
Around three quarters of new iPhone users in the United States opted for models of the iPhone 4S while 22 percent of them chose models belonging to the previous generation of the iPhone (iPhone 4 and 3GS). The fourth generation model is available for $99 with a service contract of two years. The third generation of iPhones accounted for only about 5 percent of the total sales of iPhones in the US, as increasing number of users are now opting for high end iPhone 4S models. This percentage of users has shot up from 69 to 73 percent in the month of April.
There has also been a slight change in the shares of wireless carriers like AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, as pointed out by the study. The share of AT&T dropped from 53 percent to 51 percent with regard to the activation of new iPhones. Similarly, Sprint saw a drop from 13 to 12 percent. However, Verizon’s shares increased from 34 to 37 percent with a sharp increase in activations helped no doubt by the fact that Verizon’s network has the best customer satisfaction ratings out of all the major carriers in the US.
