We really thought this would be the last iPhone update. If we were just covering the iPhone 17 Pro, that would probably be the case. Here are those charts for the last two weeks:
The iPhone 17 Pro is generally available. Occasionally a color goes into backlog, but 25 of 27 SKU possibilities are available as of Saturday evening.
However, we also track the iPhone 17 Pro Max. As you might recall, Apple was rumored to be producing an additional 2 million device run for November. It’s a good thing that they did that, as the two charts show below:
As we discussed in previous posts, there is an extra size for the Pro Max (12 SKUs per carrier vs. 9 for the 17 Pro). There seems to be more demand for 1 TB size (vs. 2 TB). This is likely an indication of a) increased business demand, and b) more upgrades from previous iPhone versions. That silver remains in shortage is also concerning.
We will continue to post availability on a weekly basis until we have closure on iPhone 17 Pro Max availability. As of yesterday, it looks like 2-4 weeks to get to general availability.
We conclude that this has been a good/ better selling season than last year (we only cover the US), but this is far from being a supercycle. Our estimate is that Pro max sales are running 4% higher than expectations. This likely means a higher upgrade percentage for each of the wireless carriers.
More in next week’s post. Questions/ comments to [email protected]. Full file is below.
