Report: Less than 10% of Americans Are Buying Flagship ($1,000+) Smartphones

Tsing

The FPS Review
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Based on marketing and media coverage, $1,000 smartphones are must-have, ultra-popular luxuries that everyone is picking up, but the reality is quite different. According to a recent NPD report, barely 10 percent of American smartphone users are buying expensive flagships, such as the iPhone 11 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Note10. One potential reasoning/excuse is that everyone is holding out for 5G models.

…geographic disparity could partially explain why flagship phones get significantly more media coverage than other phones; most media professionals are in cities like that. However, shortage of media coverage on these lower-market phones isn't that surprising to begin with; there's not much interesting for press or influencers to say about phones that use two- or three-year-old technologies and work just well enough for most people's needs but don't make any waves or innovations.
 
Best to hold out for second gen 5G phones. Since they always seem to make considerable improvements to the second gen for better speeds.

And we're still a few years out from 5G being available in enough areas to make it worth getting.
 
Definitely sencond gen 5g... And screw 1000$ phones.
 
Seconded on wait for second-gen 5G. The first wave of 5G will mostly be the Qualcomm 865 using a separate chip for 4&5G. Bound to be power issues that way.
 
10% is a lot bigger market share than I would have guessed for a halo product
 
The people that are spending that much are the ones too impatient to realize that holding off a few months forces the manufacturers to cut deals in order to move product. A lot of us have figured that out so it's not surprising such a low number aren't shelling out top dollar for little innovation.
 
I only have a flagship phone cause I needed something with enterprise features for work and that was between whatever the latest iPhone or Galaxy was available. Otherwise I tried capping myself at 3-500$.
 
I still can't believe the numbers are even this high. I think it's sad that phones have gotten this expensive and people are actually buying them. I assume most of the purchases have been made through carriers at the $x per month extra on the bill for the phone because otherwise I simply don't believe the number would be anywhere near that high.
 
I don't view 10% as high, consider this is a highly advertised product.
 
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