People aren’t buying iPhones for the new features

Apple’s new iPhone 16 goes on pre-sale tomorrow and the company is hoping the integration of its AI, Apple Intelligence, will drive consumers to upgrade to the latest model. The problem is, people don’t really buy iPhones these days for new features.

Nearly three quarters of people buying iPhones do so because their old phone was obsolete — its battery life has shortened or it’s slowed down, for example — or because their old phone was broken, lost or stolen, according to data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). Just 18% are people with a working phone who want to upgrade to get the newest features.

That’s potentially bad news for Apple, which has seen its iPhone sales — which account for more than half its revenue —flag in recent years. But it’s good news for consumers, whose phones last a lot longer than they used to. CIRP found that 34% of iPhone buyers had a previous phone that’s three years or older. A decade ago, that was around 6%.

Apple’s new buttons, like incremental changes to camera quality and battery life, are unlikely to change people’s habits. That said, integrating AI at the core of the new iPhone — if it’s done well and proves legitimately useful — could be a different story.