More than 10% of iPhone owners eyeing a folding phone – survey
Price alone is likely to make the iPhone Fold (or iPhone Ultra) a somewhat niche product in Apple’s lineup, but a new survey suggests there could be more interest than one might expect.
While the majority of US smartphone owners unsurprisingly care most about two vital but uninteresting things, interest in new form factors like foldables was surprisingly high …
It’s often been fascinating to me how the same survey results can be interpreted in different ways. A CNET survey representative of US adults has been headlined as a lack of interest in folding phones.
A recent CNET survey says smartphone users aren’t sufficiently impressed by new features and concepts to consider upgrading their phones. Only 12% are motivated by AI integrations and 13% by new phone designs.
The figure for iPhone owners is actually slightly higher at 14%.
While CNET views that as lukewarm interest, personally I found it way higher than expected. I’d seen a folding iPhone as a far more niche product than these numbers would suggest.
Of course, there’s always a gap between interest level and actual purchases, and crucially we don’t know how much awareness respondents had of the likely price of the first folding iPhone. That interest level could shrink dramatically once they see a $2000+ price tag. But I do think Apple should be encouraged by this degree of appeal.
There’s no surprise at all when it comes to the two features most people care about – price (55%) and battery life (52%).
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