Consumers Continue to Shift Toward Lower-Priced IPhones, Reports CIRP

IPhone weighted average retail prices continue falling, reported Consumer Intelligence Research Partners analyst Mike Levin Thursday. CIRP pegged the U.S. WARP at $783, down from $808 in the June quarter and off a peak $839 in the December quarter. The $699 iPhone 11 accounted for half the sales of the trio of 11 series iPhones launched in Apple’s fiscal Q4 ended Sept. 28. Combined with the iPhone XR (36 percent of quarterly sales) -- similarly positioned a year ago in the X series lineup, but at $749 -- the two accounted for almost half of U.S. iPhone sales, CIRP said. The $999 iPhone 11 Pro and $1,099 11 Pro Max (10 percent), and their 2018 X series counterparts XS and XS Max were 21 percent of sales. The XR and 11 dominated sales “at the expense of the more costly XS and XS Max, and 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max models,” said Levin, noting the lower $50 starting price for this year’s lineup is “a change for Apple.” CIRP surveyed 500 U.S. Apple customers July-September.