Competition Heats Up for iPhone Trade-ins as 6s Series Rolls Out

The Internet was buzzing with anticipation for the next-generation iPhones heading into the smartphones’ release Friday. Retailers and carriers last week tried to push their way to the front of consumers’ eyes for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and advertising highlighted the upgraded finishes, led by the wildly popular rose gold along with silver, gray and gold. Engadget noted that the rose gold model had rose gold screws to match. Target is selling 6s and 6s Plus in stores only on the AT&T, Sprint and Verizon networks, it said. Sprint (see 1509240023) and T-Mobile touted consumer-friendly upgrade deals to get customers to swap up their still-valuable iPhone 6 phones. Verizon joined them, announcing its first iPhone upgrade plan that allows customers to get a new phone every year without having to wait for the contract to end. Carriers are competing now with Apple, which offers its own upgrade program promising “a new iPhone every year” starting at $32.41 a month. That could be trouble for companies including eco-ATM and Gazelle, whose business models rely heavily on the iPhone’s trade-in value. CNET focused on the 4K content creation capability of the iPhone 6s models, which it said will lead to a “surge” in user-generated 4K video. “The content that ushers in the age of 4K is likely to come from the stars and aspiring filmmakers on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, and from regular folks who shoot their baby's first steps or grandma's 80th birthday,” CNET said. Meanwhile, IHS forecasts a 22 percent jump in iPhone shipments this year versus 2014. “Sales of the iPhone 6S should do better than past iPhone initial sales because of wider country availability early, especially China,” said an IHS email, which forecast Apple will ship 236 million iPhones this year. The key differentiator this year for Apple is 3D Touch, which is “strongly differentiated from every other smartphone maker's phone,” IHS said. 3D Touch will power new apps that are exclusive to the iPhone “because Android smartphones lack the hardware support needed for a pressure sensitive screen,” it said. The pressure will be on Apple next year to continue to drive upgrade sales with a radical new design, IHS said. That will be “a greater challenge than achieving success in 2015,” when Apple was able to capitalize on sales of larger screen phones, it said.