Phones have become so expensive these days that people are forced to change them less often than they did a few years ago, or at least that's what a new smartphone study tells us. According to it, an American changes his phone once every 3 years, instead of once every 2 years, as happened in 2014-2015, and the main reason for this radical change is the exaggerated exchange of these products.
Whether we are talking about the iPhone or phones sold by other manufacturers, waiting periods for upgrades among customers reached 2.83 years for Android and 2.92 years for iPhone, the difference being smaller than that of the prices of these phones. In 2016, people waited 2.39 years to change their phones, but 2018 brings a much longer period, and it will increase as manufacturers become more greedy and sell their phones much more expensively.
Phones are TOO EXPENSIVE, People Change Them RARELY
Apart from the very high prices for phones, American consumers no longer have the same high subsidies for phones from mobile operators, so they are forced to pay higher rates. This practice has existed in Europe for some time for mobile phones sold by various manufacturers, and porting the trend to the US seems to be a real problem for manufacturers in a market that generates higher sales than the one in Europe.
"Consumers […] wait an average of 2.83 years to upgrade their smartphones, according to data for the third quarter from HYLA Mobile Inc., a mobile-device trade-in company that works with carriers and big-box stores. That is up from 2.39 years two years earlier. iPhones traded in during the period were an average of 2.92 years old, and those phone owners held on to them longer than Android users, HYLA's data through the third quarter show."
The biggest problem for Apple, and other companies, is that as the prices of phones increase annually, the intention of consumers to upgrade decreases as a result, the trend being a worrying one for them. The reality is that this reaction is exactly the right one, because if we don't buy very expensive phones at all, or less often, then manufacturers will be forced to sell phones at much more affordable prices than normal.
