Hit-and-miss Apple analyst Gene Munster has admitted he couldn’t have been more wrong about the likely customer uptake of Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, the $32+ per month scheme designed to get new iPhones into the hands of people happy to pay a monthly fee to Apple.
The Piper Jaffray analyst — renowned for telling us that an Apple television set is perpetually just around the corner — originally predicted that just 15 percent of new iPhone customers would be willing to pay up for the 24-month lease program.
In a new note sent to clients, however, Munster says that out of 188 iPhone 6s buyers he surveyed in mid-November, 37 percent said they would sign up to the program. More than this, Munster now thinks the success rate for Apple’s Upgrade Program could be as high as 50 percent by the end of this quarter, and 75 percent of customers eventually.
Although the program is slightly more expensive than what you can get with a carrier, Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program comes with a few key benefits for both Apple and its customers.
In Apple’s favor is the fact that it locks customers into an ongoing iPhone upgrade cycle, while pushing more people than ever to upgrade every 12 rather than 24 months. It also establishes a large number of used iPhones which Apple can then refurbish and sell on. In customers’ favor is the fact that it lands you the latest iPhone, while also including AppleCare+ with the device, which carriers don’t do.
Of course, this is still educated guesswork. 188 would-be customers gives some indication of the likely success of Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, but we’ll have to wait until the scheme rolls out to know for sure whether Munster has (now) got his figures right.
Will you be signing up to the Upgrade Program? Leave your comments below.
Via: Fortune
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
20 responses to “Gene Munster admits he got Apple all wrong (again)”
I’d like to sign up for the program…
… when/if it becomes available in Canada.
I’d like to sign up too if it becomes available in Germany.
Munster….. he couldn’t predict yesterday’s weather accurately… Imagine complex subjects like Apple…
I bought my iPhone using the program. It was an easy in-store process. the bundling of AppleCare into the financed amount is pure genius. For folks who get an iPhone with Apple Care, it nearly eliminates up-front cost. The only out-of-pocket payment at purchase is sales tax.
When the program becomes available as part of on-line purchases, it will really take off.
LOL….
$32 x 24 = ONLY $768 wow what a deal
Using capitals (or shouting it) does not make it true. Please go away troll.
Actually it does its math, you should learn it.
Can’t not an iPhone6
Talk about CAPILALS Lol
You must be real fun at parties LOL. Enjoy your $1000 iPhone6s
I would definitely sign up… except you have to be a customer of one of the four pillars of greed that currently run the telecomm world. Those of us who have thought it through and have decided to go with StraightTalk or something similar are left out.
I thought when you purchase through Apple you get an unlocked phone not ties to any carrier. You just insert any sim card you like. Actually the deal through Apple breaks the hold the Big Four have over users. No more locked 2 year contracts.
Nope. They won’t let you sign up unless you are on a post-paid plan with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile. I was using Cricket and they said no. I said that I was going to switch to T-Mobile pre-paid and they said no. So I just bought the 6s outright.
If you buy the phone through apple, the phone is unlocked, but the sim is tied to a carrier with a post paid plan. My AT&T plan is now out of my previous contract, and now runs month to month. I can go to any carrier and get a new sim.
Nobody knows Apple’s sales figures as well as Apple does. When Apple came up with the Upgrade Program, it’s probably safe to assume that Apple looked at their sales figures, counted up how many people are upgrading every year, and tailored an upgrade program that makes sense for these upgrade addicts.
Munster makes so many forecasting mistakes because he doesn’t seem to realize that if Apple is doing something, they must have a good reason for doing it and unfortunately he can’t ever precisely know that reason because he doesn’t have Apple’s internal figures on sales, costs, etc.
To assume that a) Apple is run by stupid people who do dumb things, and b) you know more about Apple’s business than Apple’s executives, is just the height of stupidity.
Apples secret sauce… Huge margins making every thing they sell ultra profitable. Wow the appl consumer with shiny things and church like stores with geniuses* working there…works for them. As long as they have consumers that don’t care buying everything at full MSRP to Apple inc either up front or monthly.
* Not verified
Apple does know what they are doing they have people who literally BUY into that vision.
They can confidently say they have never sold anything at a discount. THEIR customers don’t care its Appl
I still have the grandfathered unlimited data plan with AT&T with another year to go on the contract. I don’t think I can sign up for it and keep that plan. And I don’t know if there would a contract penalty. Probably.
My contract with AT&T had expired, I bought my new phone with the apple plan without renewing my at&t contract, and am now, month to month on my grandfathered unlimited data plan.
I did sign up for the program.
Wow great ! AApl thanks you.