With the announcement of iPhone 16 series, the consumers in India get equally interested and excited about the older models. Unlike many global markets, in India at an average 80% of the sales of iPhones come from older models in any calendar year. Now iPhone 16 series crowned as the latest model, the earlier models of iPhone 15, iPhone 14, iPhone 13 and beyond catch attention of millions of smartphone users who aspire to own the penultimate in smartphones.
Festive season is all about planned buying. Consumers look up for this period, save all through the year and then leverage offers and discounts along with purchasing on EMIs to upgrade their experience. It also augers well with many special festivals of the country like Diwali which is considered auspicious to make a new beginning. Many traditional businesspeople open their books on this day and perform special prayers (puja) in their offices and establishments. Even the stock exchanges make arrangements for special trading on this day.
While many iPhone ardent loyalists will beeline to get hold of the latest generation of iPhones – iPhone 16 and immerse into very productive and easy to use, intuitive AI powered features packaged as Apple Intelligence, the aspirational people will be seen busy in deciding which older iPhone model to buy? If we look at the website of Apple in India, they only have iPhone 15, iPhone 14 and iPhone SE to offer among the older versions. However, when we check in the offline retail as well as online marketplaces, we see many earlier variants also available like iPhone 13 and iPhone 12. There are older than these versions also available, but they are mostly either refurbished or 2nd hand models.
There is a common perception among users looking for an older iPhone model that they should be ready to spend in the vicinity of ₹50,000. Incidentally, this festive season premium ₹25,000-50,000 segment is expected to witness healthy growth in sales volumes. We plotted average street price and the customer ratings of some of the options for a customer to evaluate a smartphone for around ₹50,000. Considering there are financing options and zero EMIs on cards available, customers could stretch +/-10% this price point. Also, for someone essentially looking for an iPhone, we also included iPhone 14 to consider. However, it can be considered as an outlier as its price is way beyond ₹55,000, the upper range of the band of consideration. We are left with 9 smartphone models of various OEMs including Apple for consideration by customers looking for a smartphone in this range.
Upon closer look, there are only two smartphone models in the price band which have a better customer rating than Apple iPhone 13. These are Vivo V40 Pro and Oppo Reno 10 Pro+. Oppo Reno 10 Pro+ is a year-old device and Vivo V40 Pro was launched just a month back. Both Oppo and Vivo do not enjoy the customer equity that they will go for these brands after spending around ₹50,000. These brands don’t add to the socio-economic profile of the users. They don’t add up to a statement! So, even if the customer acceptance is relatively better for these two smartphones, they don’t address one of the primary reasons of customers buying smartphones for this much of money. Oppo’s Reno 10 Pro+ is also not the latest one and is also selling at a higher retail price than iPhone 13, while vivo is just comparable. So, both options from vivo and Oppo do not maximise the returns for customers!
The other option to buy is Motorola’s Edge 50 Ultra, which is at par with the customer rating of iPhone 13. But again, its price is close to 10% higher than iPhone 13. Now within iPhones, the predecessor of iPhone 13, iPhone 12 also earns the same level of customer acceptance, and is cheaper than iPhone 13. However, the issue here is that customers are going to lose one of the important additions that was made since iPhone 13 launch, which is of the cinematic mode. Though iPhone 12 was the first 5G iPhone, and customers still get the future proofing by way of the next generation of cellular connectivity, they miss on the cinematic mode in videography along with the usual upgrades and enhancements that come with every iPhone generation.
One of the key cohorts which purchases iPhones of earlier generations is the nano and micro influencers. In fact, the first thing many of the influencers do when they start earning is to invest in equipment and iPhone is their go-to device as it gives them pro grade content creation along with ease of using while on the go. Many nano and micro influencers do not user professional grade studios. Rather they prefer to create content on the go, while at scenic locations or in hustling markets or party circuits. This makes cinematic mode a very useful feature allowing them to create content like a professional.
iPhone 13 from that context just is at the equilibrium of everything. It comes at an attractive price, and during festive period sales, should see a further drop. Historically, we have seen L-3 (latest minus 3) model of iPhone getting a price trim of anywhere between 10-15% with the announcement of festive sales period. So, in the upcoming GIF and BBD sales, this phone should become sub ₹50,000 iPhone.
It also has the social appeal satiating one of the prime, though not a tangible appeal of placing an individual in a particular socio-economic layer. For any other brand, the owner has to tell the other person the price of that particular model to reinforce that they can afford this lifestyle. With iPhone just in hand its implicit!
Finally, from the utility point of view, even someone buying an older generation of iPhone does not want to lose on any feature. One is ready to do a tradeoff between the latest level of performance available in iPhones against the price being paid, but would not want to miss any other feature, like cinematic mode, which is very important for content creators.
iPhone 13 is not available on the official online website of Apple in India. Users will have to rely on offline stores and the online marketplaces to purchase one. In offline retail it will be primarily available with the GT or general trade retailers who sell latest as well as older generations. As compared LFRs and brand stores will sell the latest and at the most L-1 (Latest minus one) models, in this case iPhone 15.
Considering the iPhone 13 will be primarily a good deal for nano and micro influencers who are in their early 20s and in the habit of buying online, iPhone 13 is going to be one of the best sellers in the upcoming festive sales of 2024.
If we look at the price range of new 5G smartphones available on Amazon and Flipkart, the two popular online marketplaces for smartphones, though Amazon has a more premium range as regards 2024 launches, iPhone 13 being an older model will see sales coming in from both the platforms. In fact, historically, we have seen Flipkart driving its value during the festive period sales by selling older variants of iPhone. However, this time the perception of premium built around Amazon is expected to give it an edge in this too.
