Above Avalon is a crowd-funded platform tracking Apple’s performance in the smartphone market since the first iPhone in 2008. According to its founder Neil Cybart Cupertino has reached 1 billion active iPhones milestone in 2020.

iPhone active users • New and upgrading iPhone users

The pace of growth in the iPhone installed base has slowed due to high smartphone penetration, Cybart wrote. In the past three years, there are also fewer new users to iPhone and in 2020 expectations are 80% to be upgrades of an older iPhone and only one of every five phones to be in the hands of a new user.

While sales has dipped twice (first after the holiday period in 2015, second after the holiday season in 2018), estimates are that Apple will manage to reach nearly 250 million sales in Q4 2021 – the current number are around 200 million per a three-month period.

iPhone sales and predictions for 2021

In order for Apple to keep the sales going strong, Cybart suggested the company needs to concentrate on “pushing camera technology boundaries”, “increasing the value found with iPhone ownership” and “increasing the number of roles handled by the iPhone”.

Cybart ended his analysis with the prediction that while the iPhone has taken Apple to 1 billion active users it’s the Apple Watch that will take company to the 2 billion milestone.

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