Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) says that, looking at all post-launch quarters together, the research group sees that Apple’s restructured model lineup has succeeded in focusing demand on the latest generation and most premium iPhones, with perhaps one slim exception.
Apple began selling the four new iPhone 17 models on September 19, 2025. At that time, Apple updated the base, Pro, and Pro Max models, and introduced the new 17 Air, which filled the slot formerly held by iPhone Plus. The iPhone 17e, which replaced last year’s iPhone 16e, came to market on March 11, 2026. And only two legacy models, the 2024 vintage iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, are sold new.
By contrast, in the two previous launch periods, Apple had as many as ten models available. Apple had drifted considerably from the Steve Jobs ideal of simplicity. The creation of the “e” slot in the lineup with the release of the iPhone 16e was ironically the critical shift back toward simplicity.
For this analysis, CIRP looked at the nine months ending with the June 2026 quarter. This excluded the September quarter when the release of the new flagship phones and tail-end of the prior year phones complicates the analysis.
CIRP compared this period to the same nine-month period ending in June for each of the two previous years, so nine months ending in June 2025 and June 2024. Each is a clean picture of a generation of flagship iPhones, according to the research group.
In this nine-month period, the four flagship iPhone 17 models accounted for an unprecedented 79% of sales. In the previous two nine-month periods ending June 2025 and June 2024, the then-similar iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 models had 70% and 67% of total sales.
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Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today
