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Anyone who believes that Apple cannot grow meaningfully from current sales levels is missing this.
The article states 78% of teens already own an iPhone. How are they going to grow meaningfully from this? Even the most blinkered Apple fan has to admit that the remaining 22% may go with an alternative or choose none at all.
 
dame the teens for being able to have a more luxurious life style than people before.
 
I got my first phone when I was 16 but that was barely a feature phone (not even w@p) and I paid for it :-/ how times change! I remember my parents telling me at the time how they had to walk down to the phone box to make a call and how lucky I was to be able to afford it! After that I upgraded to a Trium Mars that had polyphonic ringtones from one of my first months salary in a supermarket which was amazing at the time. I would hand me down an iPhone to a child or buy them a low cost SE or something but I certainly would not be buying them a top spec iPhone X or even an 8.
 
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It's difficult to expect good professional products from Apple when those paying the bills are mainly teen customers (well, their parents to be honest).
 
You only make between NZ$599 (iPhone SE) and NZ$1,549 (iPhone X) per month? That's an annual salary between NZ$7,188 and NZ$18,588 a year. :eek:

In the United States, the average household income is somewhere around US$60,000. So for a sizable portion of the U.S. population, US$1,000 is still a lot of money.
 
Believe I saw a recent survey on BBC news and the finding were that youth spend their money on mobile phones .
 
People forget that an iPhone in circulation doesn’t necessarily mean new iPhone sales, but it does mean new AppStore sales. This is why Apple emphasizes long phone update cycles. When iPhones started, having last year’s model was unbearable as they doubled (or more) the performance every year and the old model couldn’t play half the games or use key new features like Siri. Having an old phone today though isn’t as big of a deal in the way of core features.

For me, this is a significant survey because in high school, I saved up money by working for my dad’s construction company learning basic plumbing and electrical work. I used that money to buy an iPod Touch second gen. I was watching the keynotes closely and playing games on the device. When it came time to buy a first smartphone, I wanted to go with an iPhone 4, and I’ve stayed with the iPhone brand since due to a massive app library that I've built over the years, and a personal preference for the iPhone.

I noticed that while I was in engineering classes, the students older than me tended to like Android better while the students younger than me tended to prefer iPhone. (As a generational thing it seemed) Not everyone got fancy phones on their student budget, but I did see plenty of the iPhone 5/6 form factor phones. A lot of students were comparing the iPhones to Samsung phones and other expensive phones. Android got a lot more expensive in recent years, and the cost difference isn’t enough to get people to go to Android for cheaper phones anymore. For reference, I just graduated at the end of last year.
 
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Mine got a hand me down for her first one, and iPhone 4.
She then got a 5S (she paid for the phone, I covered the plan) and later and SE.
No way I'm handing a teenager a $1k phone. She broke the screen on the 5S and had to live with it until it was paid off.
She learned her lesson on the 5S and now has insurance on the SE.
Just so you’re aware, broken screens are not a great reason to get insurance. Depending on which insurance you have, the cost of fixing your glass can cost more with insurance, then without.
 
Sounds like that percentage should actually be out of all teenagers with cell phones, and is probably due to hand me down iPhones from their parents. They're going to be in for a shock at the price when it comes time to buy their own phone.
Not really. I mean in the US, imo it would be foolish not to take advantage of the IUP program (especially with the increased cost of separate AppleCare +). So kids will be simply accepting paying a monthly fee for their yearly iPhone, just like how we accept paying monthly Spotify/Netflix for our music and movies vs buying CDs/DVDs.
 
The article states 78% of teens already own an iPhone. How are they going to grow meaningfully from this? Even the most blinkered Apple fan has to admit that the remaining 22% may go with an alternative or choose none at all.
That is ignoring that there are more people (younger children) growing up behind them that don’t have phones yet, or will get big siblings old phone to use as an iPod Touch. I have also witnessed many families change phones based on what their kids use too.

Common case is the kid will show a parent something like Airdrop, or a shared photo gallery. After which, mom and dad decide they like that feature, and replace their mid ranged competitor phone with a mid ranged, (now that they exist) iPhone model. I have quite a few customers that have done this within the scope of my personal photography business.
 
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@nwcs
And meanwhile from the same journalist, Young People are Happier Than They Used To Be.

I get the point of the article you linked, and read it a while back. I don’t think we are any more doomed than when journalists prognosticated the destruction of youth with the invention of Raido, TV, and the phone. It takes time for society to catch up to new inventions, but Humanity is able to adapt.
 
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If the cheapest iPhone now is $350, I can only imagine what will be on the low end by the time I have kids who are old enough to have a phone. I'm getting married next year so I figure that's at least 15 years. Wowee.
 
These polls are pointless as are most polls in general.

If I was an app developer making an app targeted at US teens, I wouldn't find this survey pointless.

If I was an investment manager trying to put together a fund of companies that benefit from US teen involvement in the economy, I wouldn't find this survey pointless.
 
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No, just intelligent people opting for the superior device.

Yes, I love how this is automatically herd mentality. Both my boys have iPhones and both want iPhones because they are better than Android. Not because their friends may have them. I am sure if the numbers were reversed and the majority wanted Android it would be because Android is better...lol. Talk about herd mentality. With over 80% marketshare Android users are the herds of sheep not iPhone users.
 
Not surprised by this at all

Me either... I started moving away from Apple's products when I realized that their target demographic was teenage girls. It just confirms my thoughts. When your big innovations are animated poop emojis, carpool karaoke, the latest hip hop song, and fancy mall stores... that's the customers you will attract. Its not a bad strategy because that demographic is also not that tech inclined, and will probably get locked into Apple for life. And then they will demand their boyfriend or spouse get on the blue bubble bandwagon with them. You can take over the world through teenage girls!!!
 
My kid is in kindergarten so he’s too young for a phone,but almost everyone in his class has an iPad. I recently had to upgrade him from the iPad 2 to Air 2, because his games kept crashing due to low memory.
 
What about safety? Some cell phones come with warnings not to use with small heads of children, as the exposure is greater, and their brain is growing still. See www.microwavenews.com for new studies on cell phone RF issues, they are a reputable source, headed by Dr Louis Slesin, MIT PhD. Dramatic news coming out this year.





The iPhone's popularity among teens continues to grow, according to new data gathered by investment firm Piper Jaffray for the fall edition of its semiannual U.S. teen survey.

78 percent of teens surveyed own an iPhone, up two percent from the spring 2017 survey conducted earlier this year. 82 percent of teens said their next smartphone will be an iPhone, the highest amount of interest ever noted in one of these surveys.

teeniphoneownership-800x378.jpg

This jump in interest can perhaps be attributed to the 2017 iPhone lineup, which includes the iPhone X with an edge-to-edge display and a TrueDepth camera for facial recognition purposes.

Teen interest in the Apple Watch is also up, and 17 percent of teens surveyed said they plan to buy an Apple Watch in the next six months, up from 13 percent in spring 2017.

teensurveyapplewatch-800x356.jpg

Piper Jaffray says the survey is a "positive point" on iPhone 8 demand and iPhone X demand, and increasing interested in the Apple Watch.

teensurveymusic-800x462.jpg

Apple Music also made an appearance in the survey, gaining share alongside Spotify and YouTube as teens move away from streaming services like Pandora.Piper Jaffray's fall 2017 teen survey covered 6,100 teens across 44 states in the United States with an average age of 15.9 years.

Article Link: 78% of Teens Surveyed Own an iPhone, 82% Plan to Purchase
 
Most likely that kid from my store is getting an iPhone 10 lol. I personally think it's weird to drop that much money on a kid especially on something like a phone. But hey maybe that's just me. If the parent thinks it's OK then cool lol but I just couldn't do it
I have twin daughters and they bought their first iPhone, the 6S, all by themselves. They paid for the phone, i pay the plan. They are now saving up for the X.....so it is not just parents buying their kids things, a lot of the kids are paying their own way. BTW, they are 17 now.
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I'm confused. How the hell can Millennials afford iPhones when they have thousands of dollars in student debt?
thye go on a payment plan...must like everything else they do.....
 
Not surprised by the survey.

This is basically an illustration of the herd mentality that exists in teens and youngsters. We all wanted to have gadgets, clothes, toys etc that the popular kids in class had and wanted a piece of that slice to appear 'cool' next to our friends. Peer pressure plays a big part in the minds of the youth and they're often naive enough to think it's easy to get hold of one of those items without thinking about costs.

The iPhone is a fashion statement and the 'cool' thing to own in the minds of teenagers and not having one would make them feel left out and 'uncool' in front of their peers, sadly. Of course, they'd say they want an iPhone as their next phone or plan to 'purchase' one.
 
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Well, you probably don't have a kids to support, you don't have bills to pay monthly. They are not in current generation that a phone is really now essential to even kids. Imagine that.

I don't have kids, I have bills, and flip phones were essential to teens in my day.
 
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