Trade-in value and brand loyalty dwarfs Apple rivals
Apple has recently been fortunate enough to experience one piece of good news after another. So it doesn’t come as a huge surprise that the consumer electronics giant has been handed yet another boost by a British study recently conducted by trade-in monitoring company CompareMyMoble.
The study in question looked at the value of mobile devices when they are traded in for replacement handsets. And with Apple attempting to continue to cultivate a luxurious image for the iPhone range, the company will be delighted about the results that the iPhone 6 has achieved.
iPhone 6 trade-in value
The survey which was shared by Phone Arena found that Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the most valuable devices of 2014, with handsets offered by Apple’s great rival Samsung, such as the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3, trailing some distance in its wake.
Both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus have been hugely successful for Apple; it was recently reported that the devices collectively have shifted around 75 million units. This was significantly more than analysts originally expected, and certainly more than Apple bargained for. This has contributed to a situation in which Apple is by far the worlds most successful manufacturer of mobile technology, and the reputation and kudos of the company is reflected in figures from this survey.
The peak trade-in price for the iPhone 6 and / or iPhone 6 Plus was £485.05 ($730), with the Galaxy S5 and the Galaxy Note 3 trading in for £320 ($482) and £286 ($431) respectively. This is a huge gulf, with the iPhone 6 Plus able to command nearly double the fee of its most obvious phablet rival.
Perhaps the study might suggest that a lot of people are purchasing Apple devices and then the trading them in for competitors. Unfortunately for the likes of Samsung, HTC and Google, this doesn’t turn out to be the case. Previous research has found that Apple customers are extremely loyal to the brand, and this latest survey seemed to strongly support this notion.
Apple is the most traded-in handset brand, but many of those who trade-in iPhones are only doing so in order to acquire another device from the same range. Apple boasts 38 percent of the overall trade-in market, and 81 percent of these swaps are carried out in order to acquire another Apple device. Less than 10 percent of customers who traded in an iPhone ultimately moved to a Samsung handset, and under 3 percent purchased an HTC device when trading in their iPhones.
Brand loyalty
Samsung does own a significant portion of the trade-in market, with the Korean Corporation responsible for over 34 percent of this niche. But in a year in which the hierarchy of Samsung was forced to admit that its a mobile policy has not been ideal in recent years, and having experienced profits plummeting by 60 percent, it is perhaps not hugely surprising that Samsung cannot rely on the same level of brand loyalty as Apple.
Less than 50 percent of people trading in an older Samsung device chose to buy a new one; 44.26 percent to be precise. This was only marginally more than the number of Samsung customers who traded in their devices in order to switch to Apple, with more than one in three of those who participated in Samsung trade-ins having selected an iPhone instead.
The situation was even worse for HTC, who according to the survey have to suffer the ignominy of knowing that more people who trade in their devices opt to buy an iPhone than upgrade to an existing HTC device. Only just over one-quarter of HTC device owners who traded their devices in stuck with HTC, with 35.5 percent of them buying an iPhone.
This obviously makes excellent reading for Apple, and it comes hard on the heels of a raft of excellent news for the corporation. The Apple iPhone 6 has been a monumental success for the corporation, and appetite for the flagship iPhone series does not seem to have diminished whatsoever.
Apple sets records
Indeed, Apple was recently able to announce record profits, which actually represented the most successful quarter of any business in economic history. It is natural when one reads this news to juxtapose Apple with Samsung, which has had to suffer a massive fall in profits as the Western European market which the Korean corporation so relied on has seemingly begun to dry up for them somewhat.
The popularity of Apple worldwide is now massive, and as Apple devices become more affordable for people living in developing economies and even the Third World, it is extremely encouraging for Apple to see the level of brand loyalty that it has achieved. This should translate into popularity in these emerging marketplaces, and if the consumer electronics giant can rely on the same level of loyalty that it has seemingly generated in the West, then its already incredibly strong economic and market position will only solidify.
Not only has Apple recently posted the most successful three-month period in business history, but it also just a couple of months ago became the first company to ever achieve a $700 billion market capitalization. It is already predicted by many analysts that Apple will become the first company to post a $1 trillion market cap in the near future.
Apple is not without its knockers, doubters and critics. The company has not always been praised for its ethical conduct, and will always be subjected to criticism for what detractors believe are overpriced devices that rely on fashion in order to sell.
But the success of Apple is really quite simple; they deliver what people actually want and need and place a particular emphasis on design and build quality. Maybe their devices aren’t always technically the best device on the market, but consumer electronics publications’ reviews of Apple products almost without exception offer them an outstanding critical reception across the board. Apple has carved out a niche whereby it offers an extremely slick user experience, which is packaged in an attractive and sexy way. This clearly has a resonance with consumers, and the Apple success story continues to go from strength to strength.
