Piper Sandler: Survey shows 87% of American teenagers own iPhones

The latest Piper Sandler Teen Survey shows that iPhone ownership continues to rise, as does the Apple Watch and Apple Pay. The roughly twice-yearly Piper Sandler survey of U.S. teens shows that iPhone ownership has risen 1% to 87% since the last report.

Meanwhile, new data claims that 88% of teens say their next phone will also be an iPhone, which is down 1% from the last report.

"iPhone ownership at 87% and iPhone purchase intent at 88% are both near all-time highs for our survey," Piper Sandler managing directors Harsh Kumar and Chris Donat wrote in the full report. "We believe the increases in penetration and intent are significant for a maturing premium smartphone market."

“Additionally, these trends are encouraging as the company continues to launch new 5G iPhones,” the report continued, “which can provide an important product cycle refresh. We believe these positive trends can also serve as a catalyst for further services growth as the adoption base of Apple hardware continues to grow.”

The survey also said that 15% of teens intend to buy an Apple Watch in the next six months, compared to 13% in the spring 2021 report. Apple Watch is now the most popular watch brand, with 39% of teens saying it is their favorite, surpassing Rolex, which is now 35%. The actual ownership rate of Apple Watch is 30%, compared to 25% in the fall 2021 survey.

The vast majority of teens surveyed are comfortable using cash to pay, although Apple Pay ranks second among all electronic payment alternatives, with 85% of teens having used cash in the last month, up from 83% at this time last year.

35% used Apple Pay last month, while 22% used PayPal and 4% used Google Pay.

“While we were somewhat surprised by the penetration of cash among teens,” the report said, “we believe this is a result of 35% of teens surveyed not having a traditional bank account. We expect that as teens age, they will graduate to electronic payment methods such as Apple Pay, PayPal, and others,” the report continued.

Piper Sandler compiled the report based on a survey of 10,000 teens in 44 states. The 42nd survey was conducted between August 17 and September 16, 2021.

From cnbeta