The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus accounted for 16 per cent of US iPhone sales in Apple’s fiscal Q4 (the three months to 1 October), as customers waited to buy the forthcoming iPhone X, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) noted this week.

According to CIRP data, the iPhone 8 garnered a 6 per cent share and the iPhone 8 Plus 10 per cent in the ten days since the devices went on sale on 22 September. Those figures are much lower than the share numbers for earlier models, including the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, which pulled in 43 per cent of sales in their launch quarter.

The iPhone 8’s performance is also below the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which pulled in 46 per cent of sales in in the few weeks immediately after their debut.

CIRP observed the iPhone 8’s share of overall iPhone sales is actually closer to Apple’s most recent “S” models, the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, which pulled in 24 per cent of sales in their launch quarter.

The research company attributed the low uptake of the iPhone 8 devices to customers waiting for the debut of the iPhone X in November. Its findings are borne out in results from US wireless carriers in the third calendar quarter. AT&T reported 900,000 fewer device upgrades compared with Q3 2016, while upgrade rates at Verizon and T-Mobile dropped significantly.

“It seems when Apple announced the forthcoming iPhone X, it changed the market dynamic, and probably depressed demand for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus,” Mike Levin, CIRP partner and co-founder, noted in a statement: “Both the newly reduced-price iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and older iPhone models continue to see strong demand. Rather than waiting for and buying the iPhone 8, it looks like buyers in this quarter either bought existing models, or decided to wait for iPhone X, later in the year.”

Those waiting for the iPhone X could be standing in line a bit longer. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo last week predicted component shortages will force Apple to launch the iPhone X with a limited supplyof only 2 million to 3 million devices.

Source: mobileworldlive