iPhone Ownership Among American Teens Remains Steady While Intent to Purchase Grows

American teenagers are still choosing Apple's iPhone over the competition, with 82 percent of surveyed U.S. teens saying that they own an iPhone, according to Piper Jaffray's latest survey (via Business Insider).

This number has grown steadily from 76 percent in April 2017 to 78 percent in October 2017, and it now appears to have plateaued temporarily in 2018, as 82 percent of teens said they owned an iPhone back in April.

iphone xs selfies
Looking to the future, 86 percent of teens surveyed said that they plan on buying an iPhone as their next smartphone. This is an increase from 84 percent in the spring.

In comparison, 10 percent of the teens said they planned on buying an Android smartphone next, down from 11 percent in the spring. The researchers at Piper Jaffray say that American teens' intent to buy an iPhone is now at the highest they have ever seen.

piper jaffray teen 2018 fall
Other tidbits from the report include: 45 percent of teens saying that the brand of an item is the most important factor in a purchase decision, Amazon is the top preferred website, and Instagram is now the most used social platform as Facebook faces an ongoing decline. Netflix represented 38 percent of daily video consumption, ahead of YouTube (33 percent), cable TV (16 percent), and Hulu (5 percent).

For this survey, Piper Jaffray surveyed around 8,600 teenagers across 47 states with an average age of 16 and an average household income of $68,300. 44 percent of the teens were female, while 56 were male.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

ArtOfWarfare Avatar
81 months ago
When they say "teens intend to buy", I expect that there's a significant portion of the group that intend to have money from parents involved. And those parents could balk and veto whatever the teen wants.

Obviously those teens are price-insensitive. It doesn't matter how trivial the new features are, it's worth it because it's basically free to them.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TVreporter Avatar
81 months ago
Ah growing up as a teen it used to be wanting to have the cool footwear - Nike vs whoever.

This is much worse...
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RickInHouston Avatar
81 months ago
My kid used to play Minecraft and acted like it was the center of his universe.

Careful, kids can spin on a dime. Now he wants a Samsung phone because he can get an exclusive skin for Fortnite.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
x-evil-x Avatar
81 months ago
I miss my red pager I had in 98. I was ahead of the game :D
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KazKam Avatar
81 months ago
I'd say this bears out even past high school and into late teens, early twenties. I help develop the official app for a large university, both iOS and Android versions, and 70-75% of our daily active users are iPhone users, and our user base is a solid 80% of 35,000 students.

That says to me that the ratio of university-aged students owning iPhones vs. Android is extremely skewed toward iPhone vs the Android market share worldwide. Granted, university students also tend to come from more affluence in general, households where bargain Android handsets aren't pushed. Though we also tend to see a lot of college students owning 5s, 6, 6s... possibly hand-me-downs from siblings and parents, as iPhones do tend to have a longer life cycle.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Scottsoapbox Avatar
81 months ago
Plan to buy is growing because teens can't afford to actually buy the latest iPhones.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)