The iPhone X may be expensive, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. The best iPhone Apple has ever made has been sold out around the world since it hit preorders early on October 27th. But people are still flocking to buy it, and China seems to be a hot market for Apple right now.
Apparently, the iPhone X is responsible for more upgrades in the region, but it’s also convincing more Android users to switch.
The analysis comes from Morgan Stanley, which discovered that the switching rate has accelerated in China because of the iPhone X.
“Additional data show that iPhone X adoption in China is on a faster pace than the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus … Despite faster penetration of iPhone X vs. iPhone 8/8 Plus, we believe there remains significant pent-up demand from the base of 2+ year old iPhone owners,” Katy Huberty wrote, according to Yahoo Finance.
Morgan Stanley explains that nearly half of iPhone X buyers upgraded from last year’s iPhone 7 family, which means there are plenty of iPhone users with phones older than two years who may be tempted to switch.
Furthermore, the net switching rate, or jumped 130 basis points in the four-week period ending November 19th. That rate measures the difference between the non-iPhone smartphone owners who bought an iPhone and the iPhone users who switched to a different phone.
The following graphic shows the net switch rate in China for the period.
“Ultimately, these data points show that faster iPhone X penetration, coupled with increasing switching rates to Apple, have accelerated market share gains for the iPhone in China,” Huberty said. “In the last six months, Apple’s period-over-period active smartphone market share gains have averaged 1.4 basis points. In the two four-week periods that contain partial iPhone X shipment data, however, share gains averaged 87.1 basis points, driving iPhone market share to 21.2 percent.”
