Head into an Apple Store to pick up a brand new iPhone 6 of your own and you have a decision to make: regular (4.7-inch) or supersized (5.5-inch)? The 6 Plus may have a larger screen, better battery life and an optical image stabilizer, but it looks like the smaller iPhone 6 is proving the more popular handset in the U.S., if a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners is to be believed.
Apple doesn’t break its iPhone sales numbers down into individual models, so these aren’t official figures, but UBS analyst Steven Milunovich says the iPhone 6 accounts for 68 percent of all handset sales while the iPhone 6 Plus comes in at 23-24 percent. That leaves about 9 percent, which is made up by sales of older units in the line-up. Milunovich also reports that the pair of iPhone 6 handsets have attracted more interest than the iPhone 5s and 5c did at this point last year.
With shortages of iPhone 6 Plus stock around the world, it’s possible that demand for the device is actually stronger than CIRP’s figures show. The company also looked at phone capacities — on average, 48GB is the amount of on-board storage that consumers are opting for. That would suggest 64GB is proving much more popular than the entry-level 16GB, with 128GB appealing to a small subset of power users.
The iPhone has been a big hit for Apple: The company says the 10 million units that were shifted over the opening weekend were a new record for the smartphone, and the device should add a bumper boost to an already healthy bottom line. Apple will be hoping the Apple Watch makes a similarly big splash when it goes on sale sometime in the first half of next year — although it may be a while before we get any official sales figures for the wearable.
