As we mentioned last week, it appears that availability is coming into focus with good availability by the Thanksgiving holiday. That thesis holds for the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max model appears to be showing more strain. We now have three SKUs (two in white titanium, one in black) that are completely out of stock on-line. Many color/ memory combinations were pushed out 1-2 weeks. Overall, the iPhone Pro Max availability appears to be in question headed into November.

As for carriers, the upgrade cycle is strong at AT&T (and less strong, especially at the higher memory options, at T-Mobile). This can change with promotions, and is not indicative of store stock, but the backlog is not as robust for Magenta as it was in part cycles.

We will reiterate the “false positive” thesis for the fourth quarter – AT&T and T-Mobile will report stronger upgrades ending the year than they did in 2022. This has more to do with supply issues last year than demand in 2023. Verizon will report lower cost increases than expected because of their extraordinary efforts to deliver devices in 2022.

A few of you have messaged me about availability at other carriers, specifically the cable companies and Boost Infinite. We did a quick check, and the cable companies are reporting backlogs that are between 1-2 weeks less than their larger wireless competitors, and Boost Infinite has many more SKUs in stock. This does not indicate that volumes are down because cable and Boost were not as active with iPhone sales in 2022 as they are this year. We will have more commentary on their respective offers (including Xfinity Mobile’s BOGO service offer) in next week’s Brief.

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