People Like Their Smart Phones, But Don't Want to Pay Too Much for Them

A new survey of U.S. consumers suggests the magnitude of the problem mobile service providers face as they try to wean buyers off of high handset subsidies.


The majority of consumers who recently purchased a handset reported a mean overall handset purchase price of approximately $114.23. Similarly, the majority of consumers who plan to buy any type of handset in the near future plan to spend on average approximately $127.25.

Granted, those figures include feature phones and smart phones, but about 71 percent of the sales were of smart phones.

When iGR examined the price the respondents were willing to pay for a smart phone, the survey showed that consumers were on average willing to pay $135.90 for an Apple iPhone compared to $124.65 for an Android device.

Given the cost of manufacturing and selling those sorts of devices, which can carry retail prices in the $500 to $600 range, there is a wide gap between apparent willingness to pay and actual cost. Of course, actual end user behavior is a better guide than survey responses. Based on those sorts of data, one might argue actual purchase behavior can run up to about $200 for high-end devices.


In a May 2012 survey, consumers indicated that 28 percent of the mobile handsets they purchased recently were basic mobile phones and 71 percent were smart phones. Close to 69 percent of the handsets they plan to buy in the future are likely to be smart phones, iGR Research found.