Current owners of Apple's iPhone, including the last-generation iPhone 4S, accounted for 69 percent of a 256 percent increase in trade-in offers through eBay's Instant Sale service after the new iPhone 5 was announced last week, while Android devices amounted to only 16 percent of total offers.
Since the iPhone 5 was announced on Sept. 12, eBay Instant Sale trade-in offers for legacy handsets increased 256 percent from the same period one week prior, according to metrics provided to AppleInsider.
While the data comes from offers generated by eBay's Instant Sale and do not reflect actual trade-ins, the numbers could be indicative of the overall trend in who is upgrading to the new Apple smartphone.
The huge jump in trade-in offers was driven mainly by existing iPhone users looking to offload their old devices, presumably to fund the purchase of the new iPhone 5.
In all, offers generated for iOS devices came in at 69 percent, followed by Android products with 16 percent and all others accounting for 4 percent. Of those iPhone owners requesting trade-in values, 46 percent were looking to sell the iPhone 4, 40 percent for iPhone 4S, 8 percent for iPhone 3GS and 6 percent for iPhone 3G. eBay further broke down the generated offers, saying the top five devices generating offers were iOS devices:
- iPhone 4 32GB AT&T
- iPhone 4s 64GB
- iPhone 4 16GB AT&T
- iPhone 4s 16GB
- iPhone 4s 32GB
While Apple has yet to win over the Android set, the iPhone upgrade market appears to be alive and well despite ever-increasing U.S. smartphone saturation.
26 Comments
Apple isn't capable of supporting the numbers to satisfy Android users if they decided to switch. Foxconn couldn't keep up with the supply, so it really doesn't matter. Besides, carriers will continue to push non-Apple products on consumers because cellphone carrier salespeople get incentives to sell non-Apple smartphones.
My cracked iPhone 4S sold in 20 secs on eBay with my posted BIN price, don't know why people don't just sell it outright then trade it in to these companies that literally rip you off.
It's funny… It's only a few days after announcement and the new iPhone already doesn't appear "stretched" at all. It feels absolutely natural that a screen of that shape and size would fit in that aesthetic, which is similar to the previous.
… Not so if both bezels had been removed, that's for sure.
I predict that in 6-12 months, we'll have wondered how we got along with only five rows of icons on each Home Screen…
I was going to post my iPhone 4S on Ebay, but I don't "need" the money so I think I am just going to hold onto it. Should I break/loose my iPhone 5, it would be nice to have a quick replacement until I can get another. . . .
I was going to post my iPhone 4S on Ebay, but I don't "need" the money so I think I am just going to hold onto it. Should I break/loose my iPhone 5, it would be nice to have a quick replacement until I can get another. . . .
Good idea! :)