The iPhone continues to be overwhelmingly popular with teens, according to Piper Sandler's biannual teen survey. 85 percent of U.S. teens surveyed own an iPhone, and 86 percent plan to purchase an iPhone as their next smartphone.
While the iPhone is still the most popular smartphone among teens, ownership is down from the October 2023 survey where 87 percent of teens owned an iPhone and 88 percent planned to purchase one.
Both the 85% iPhone ownership and 86% intention to purchase an iPhone metrics are near record highs for our survey but down from record levels in 2021. We believe the elevated penetration and purchase intention are important given the mature premium smartphone market. Additionally, trends towards premium tier phones are encouraging as the company continues to introduce new iPhones proving the overall stickiness of the product portfolio. Finally, positive trends in services could follow, as the install base for Apple hardware continues to grow.
Apple's dominance in the teen market is of particular interest right now because it is one metric that the U.S. Department of Justice is targeting in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
The DoJ has suggested that Apple's ownership of the U.S. smartphone market causes "social stigma, exclusion, and blame" for non-iPhone users, with "green bubble" chats and issues between iPhone and Android message users cited as a specific example. The DoJ claims that this is "particularly powerful" for teenagers, and that "social pressure" causes teens to switch to the iPhone.
The antitrust lawsuit also suggests that Apple's marketshare among "key demographics" like "younger audiences" is an issue that gives Apple too much power over the smartphone ecosystem.
As for the Apple Watch, 34 percent of teens reported using an Apple Watch, with no change from last fall. Intent to buy an Apple Watch was up three percent, however, with 13 percent of teens planning to buy one in the next six months. Only 39.4 percent of teens said they own a smart watch, so teens are also overwhelmingly preferring the Apple Watch to other smart watch brands. The Apple Watch was the top watch brand, with Rolex and Casio coming in second and third, respectively.
Teens prefer Spotify as their music service, and nearly two-thirds of teens surveyed said Spotify is their preferred service. Just over 30 percent of teens said they use Apple Music. Apple TV+ is not popular with teen audiences, and less than five percent of teens said they watch it on a daily basis. Comparatively, over 30 percent of teens watch Netflix daily, and close to 30 percent watch YouTube.
Apple Pay was the most popular payment platform with 44 percent of teens using it in the last month, but Cash app and Venmo are preferred for peer-to-peer money transfers.
Piper Sandler surveyed 6,020 teens across 47 U.S. states for its spring 2024 report.
