Despite any number of stories claiming that Apple’s iPhone XR isn’t selling as well as anticipated, a new research report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) paints a slightly more optimistic picture. According to data tabulated in November, the iPhone XR accounted for 32% of iPhone sales during its first full month of availability. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone XS models accounted for 35% of sales.
“Based on the initial sales, iPhone XR took the same share of iPhone sales as earlier models in their first month on the market,” CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz said.
Truth be told, the news shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, especially given that Apple executive Greg Joswiak a few weeks back revealed that the iPhone XR has been Apple’s “most popular iPhone each and every day since the day it became available.”
While cumulative iPhone sales for the month remain unclear, one of the more interesting tidbits from the CIRP report is that Apple’s 2018 iPhone lineup — spearheaded by the iPhone XR, of course — is apparently doing a solid job of luring over Android users.
Specifically, the report found that 16% of new iPhone owners in November were former Android users. As a point of comparison, only 11% of new iPhone owners during November of 2017 were coming over from the Android camp.
“It appears that iPhone XR did serve to attract current Android users,” CIRP’s other co-founder Mike Levin explained. “Of course, Apple doesn’t just state plainly its launch strategy. But, based on the pricing and features, we can infer that Apple positioned the iPhone XR to appeal to potential operating systems switchers from Android.”
The iPhone XR unquestionably represents one of the more compelling devices Apple has ever released. Though lacking some of the bells and whistles of the pricier XS models, the iPhone XR’s offers up a tremendous amount of value relative to its price. Unfortunately, with Apple no longer planning to disclose quarterly iPhone sales, we won’t have a firm grasp as to how overall iPhone sales are doing anytime soon.
