The big iPhone has its appeal and is taking a chunk out of the tablet market
It’s no secret that the tablet market is in something of a freefall. It is being squeezed on the top end by high-end laptops that have detachable touch screens and on the bottom by large phones. Plus, the chief advocate for tablets was Steve Jobs, who is no longer with us, and no one has stepped forward to champion the tablet.
NPD Group reports that tablet sales have dropped 15 percent from 2015 to 2016. It would have been worse if not for Amazon practically giving away the low-cost Amazon Fire Tablet. There is also some success to be had with the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface Pro 4.
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But the real damage is being done by large phones, sometimes called phablets (a portmanteau for “phone-tablet”). In the fourth quarter of 2016, Apple sold just 13 million iPads, a 19 percent drop from the same period in 2015. However, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners says the iPhone Plus, with its 6.23-in. diagonal screen, made up 35 percent of the iPhone installed base as of the end of last year, up from 25 percent in the same quarter of 2015.
The iPhone installed base in the U.S. is approximately 135 million units. At one-third of the installed base, that puts the three generations of iPhone Plus—6, 6S and 7—at 46.2 million. That’s a lot better than the iPad is doing these days.
“It appears to have overcome initial doubts about their appeal. And given their premium prices and a trend toward purchasing greater storage capacity among all iPhone buyers, this added meaningfully to revenues and gross margin,” said Mike Levin, partner and co-founder of CIRP, in a statement.
Why people like the iPhone Plus
The reason most people give for liking the iPhone Plus model is the display. It’s large and easy to use even for people with fat fingers. But I found another reason to like my iPhone 6S Plus: its much larger battery. The Plus has a 2900mAh battery, considerably more juice than the 1960mAh of the regular phone. That translates to a lot more battery life.
I used to need to use a Mophie Juice Pack battery case to keep from running out of power if I was out and about for a long time, and I had to recharge daily. While the Mophie case did double battery life, it also added a fair amount of bulk and weight to the phone.
With my 6S Plus (which will likely be my last iPhone unless Apple comes to its senses and restores the headphone jack), I can go two or three days without recharging at my normal use levels. No, it doesn’t quite fit in my pocket like the old phone, but that was a worthwhile tradeoff.
I’ve had an inordinate amount of work done on my house lately, and all of the professionals who came by used large phones—either an iPhone Plus or a large Android, like the Galaxy Note. If you are going to work on your phone all day, you are going to want that battery life and comfortable screen—and the large phones do both. Even smaller, 7-in. tablets don’t quite cut it. They are too big to carry in your pocket, and they don’t make phone calls.
It’s another case where Steve Jobs was wrong, too. In 2010, he said “nobody is going to buy that” in reference to large-screen phones. He was talking about 4-in. and 5-in. screens. Well, it turns out people like 6-in. screens.
