14 DAY TRIAL // According to a study conducted by Raymond James’ Tavis McCourt, a third of iPhone owners would be willing to pay a hefty sum for a bigger iPhone. Around a third of the respondents said they wouldn’t have a problem coughing up as much as $100 (€72.69) extra.
McCourt compiled responses from 500 people in the United States from March 13th to 17th and concluded that the iPhone’s market share remains stable, while customers continue to show a high degree of interest in the Apple smartphone, including upcoming versions.
“The percent of survey respondents who owned iPhones declined q/q to 52.3% from a high of 56% in December, but was up from 49.4% a year ago. iPhone share likely to continue to be stable: 49.7% of respondents intend to purchase an iPhone for their next smartphone, which is at the low end of the 50% to 55% range witnessed in our survey since we began in June 2012,” wrote McCourt.
There have been rumors that, if Apple launches a bigger-screen iPhone, the price will also go up a bit, mainly because of the production costs. The analyst asked to see if people are indeed willing to cough up something extra if Apple ends up charging more for a bigger handset. As it turns out, they are.
“33% of iPhone users would be willing to pay $100 more for a bigger-screened iPhone (up from 26% in our last survey). With speculation that iPhone 6 will have a bigger screen, it will be interesting to see Apple’s pricing choice. Equally interesting, only 6% of Android users in our survey found interest in a bigger screened iPhone for a $100 premium, which would indicate that a larger screen could improve upgrade rates for Apple, but likely not materially impact its subscriber base.”
As far as other players are concerned, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Microsoft are having a hard time nabbing a two-figure share, with some struggling even to reach 5 percent. A good example is Microsoft with its Windows Phone platform, but an even better example is BlackBerry, which still sells QUERTY devices.
“Niche at best: Less than 3% of smartphone users in our survey intend to purchase a Windows Phone as their next phone and less than 1% intend to purchase a BlackBerry. These are both down sequentially, as neither platform shows any signs of momentum in the U.S,” reads the Barron’s report.
Apple is expected to unveil its larger iPhone 6 in September, but some believe the launch could occur as early as June (at WWDC). The display size will reportedly be 4.7 inches on the diagonal.