14 DAY TRIAL // Even though services and iPhones are the ones propelling Apple beyond the $1 trillion market cap, devices aren’t necessarily the products that most people are looking for when stepping into an Apple Store or visiting a third-party retailer.
Data published by Ceros shows that as far as Best Buy is concerned, dongles are Apple’s top products among its customers, with adapters being rated as the best sellers ever since the first quarter of 2016.
AirPods are currently the number one Apple product at Best Buy after a massive growth in the fourth quarter of 2017, but the Lightning to 3.5mm headphone adapter and the 3.3’ Lightning to USB cable have both been at the top of the charts for several quarters in a row. Furthermore, the MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch display is also doing well, being ranked third.
iPhones are nowhere to be seen in these charts, but the cited source notes that sales of Apple’s flagship device are tracked by Best Buy based on a series of variants, like color and carrier. Furthermore, most iPhones are sold through carriers with contracts, though it’s still rather unexpected to see the device not even entering the top ten at Best Buy.
The dongle craze
Apple started the dongle craze with the removal of the headphone jack back on the iPhone 7. The company thus decided to give up on the popular connector and focus exclusively on the Lightning port, with the iPhone 8 generation and the iPhone X using the very same approach.
Both series, however, launched with a headphone adapter in the box, allowing owners to use their 3.5mm headsets without having to buy the dongle separately. This could all change this year, as it’s being rumored that the adapter would no longer be offered, with Apple planning to make the full switch to Lightning.
In the meantime, it looks like this strategy of selling dongles separately is working, and while we don’t know for sure how much money these little accessories generate, they’re certainly a money-making machine all over the world.
