Apple CEO Tim Cook called his company’s recent iPhone sales surge “simply staggering” on Thursday. What was behind the iPhone 17 family’s successful debut? Analysts have a few theories.
The company topped Wall Street’s expectations in the most recent quarter, posting $143.76 billion in total revenue for the period that included a 23% year-over-year bump in sales of its signature smartphone. “It was a fantastic quarter for iPhone with an all-time revenue record of $85.3 billion,” Cook said on the call. “This is the strongest iPhone lineup we’ve ever had and, by far, the most popular. Throughout the quarter, customer enthusiasm for iPhone was simply extraordinary.”
Apple’s strong results don’t necessarily mean that customers are done holding onto their older smartphones for years at a time, a trend enabled by the tech’s increasing durability. Nearly half of U.S. iPhone users now hold onto their smartphones for three years or longer, according to a September report by CIRP, which tracks data on iPhone buyers through customer surveys. That number was 24% just five years ago, notes analyst Josh Lowitz, a partner and co-founder at Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
Rather, the increased iPhone revenue at the end of 2025 likely stems from factors like Apple’s updated pricing strategies and backlogged demand from the many customers who last bought new iPhones during the Covid-19 pandemic, Lowitz says.
“Sales were very strong during the pandemic because people weren’t spending on restaurants and travel, and there was a lot of money floating around. Now, the pandemic phone buyers have 4-plus-year-old phones,” says Lowitz. Those people were simply “due” for upgrades, which helped spur the increased demand, he says.
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Wedbush analyst Dan Ives agrees: “The iPhone 17 has almost been a sleepy surprise upgrade cycle,” due partially to the “pent-up demand” of an estimated 315 million iPhone users worldwide who hadn’t upgraded their smartphones in more than four years, according to Wedbush’s estimates.
As for Apple’s pricing strategies, Lowitz notes that Apple streamlined its offerings by discontinuing models older than the iPhone 16 line. Shoppers often like to buy the middle-of-the-road choice when presented with several options, and by limiting the options, Apple functionally turned the standard iPhone 17 into that middle option, Lowitz says.
From there, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max weren’t prohibitively expensive enough — compared to the standard iPhone 17, anyway — to dissuade customers from splurging, says Lowitz. Apple’s latest premium-priced Pro and Pro Max smartphones accounted for 52% of U.S. iPhone sales during the most recent quarter, according to CIRP’s estimate.
Plus, the phones themselves have largely been positively reviewed and well received among consumers as high-quality pieces of technology, says Lowitz.
Continued growth ‘all comes down to AI,’ says analyst
The phones’ improved quality may be a double-edged sword for Apple’s future sales, Lowitz says. Particularly if new iPhone features only get “incrementally better” in the coming years, customers are unlikely to repeat the recent surge in iPhone sales anytime soon, he suggests.
But if Apple can create entirely new or dramatically improved iPhone features — potentially including artificial intelligence software or a foldable iPhone that’s reportedly in development — then the company can repeat its success in the immediate future, says Ives.
“For Apple, it’s harder and harder to come up with a hardware upgrade cycle that’s going to excite customers,” Ives says. “It all comes down to AI, so customers have sort of been in this waiting game.”
On the Thursday call, Cook touted a planned partnership with Google on upgraded AI features for Apple’s Siri virtual assistant, which he said will be introduced later this year. Apple also announced the acquisition of Q.ai, an Israeli AI startup.
Ives’ prediction: Apple’s customers will keep spending, at least in the short term. “I think these are going to all play into an upgrade cycle that I think is going to continue for Apple for the next 12 to 18 months,” he says.
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