Apple

Hanish Bhatia
Hanish Bhatia
Vice President of Device Intelligence

Apple is expected to launch its first folding iPhone Fold this fall. Apple has entered mature categories late before and still won them, as it did with tablets, watches and wireless earbuds. However, the foldable market it is walking into looks different, mainly because it has not actually been growing.

Firstly, let’s look at the category itself. Recon Analytics detects the handset model of every survey respondent passively, from the device user agent, across roughly 8,000 to 9,000 US mobile subscribers every week. Our Device Intelligence Group‘s Consumer Pulse service captures 30+ consumer demographics and preferences for 700,000+ US consumers at model level. In the twelve months to August 2026, foldables accounted for 1.13% of every smartphone in our data. In the twelve months before that, they were 1.14%. The trend is very similar for every trailing year during the peak launch periods. So the number has not moved, and that is despite three Motorola Razr generations, seven Galaxy Z and Flip generations, and Pixel Folds. Therefore, the flat line is not a sampling quirk, it simply reflects that the demand has flattened over the years. But the flat line is not the interesting part. What sits underneath it is, because “foldable owners” is not one group of people.

The chart below plots every foldable model against two demographics. One is the share of owners who are male, and the other is the share living in households earning $100,000 or more. The dashed lines mark the US smartphone average. Three clusters fall out, and they are not variations of each other.

Chart showing US foldable smartphone owners by gender and household income

  1. Book-style folds are male and affluent. Galaxy Z Fold7 owners are 63% male, and 28% of them earn $100K+, against a national smartphone average of 45% and 18.5%. Pixel Fold, pooling all three generations, is the most male-skewed handset in the entire dataset at 72%.
  2. Galaxy Z Flip is almost the mirror image. The clamshell Flips run 35% to 43% male, with the Z Flip5 at 34.8%. So between Pixel Fold and Z Flip5 there is a gender gap of nearly 37 points inside what the industry insists on calling one category. Income sits at or slightly above the market.
  3. Motorola Razr is where the volume actually is, but it is a value device rather than a flagship. Razr 2023, 2024 and 2025 owners look ordinary on gender at 45% to 50% male, yet only 6% to 8% of them earn $100K+. That is less than half the national rate.

This tells us that foldables have been able to carve our certain niches within the foldable users. In case of Razr, the device has been heavily subsidized and sometimes ranged at prepaid carriers, which it makes it skew towards lower income groups. But the co-relation between gender and foldable form factor is the most important one. Now, Apple’s device is expected to be book-style. That places it in the top right corner, which is the smallest, most male and most affluent of the three clusters, and also the one Samsung has spent seven generations failing to expand.

Carrier Promotions & Subsidies Key to Strong Demand

We also ask iPhone owners what they plan to spend on their next phone. Of the 51,700 who gave us a number, 1.8% said $1,800 or more and 12.7% said $1,200 or more, while 45.5% said under $600. So if the Fold arrives anywhere near the rumored $2,000, it sits above the stated budget of roughly 98 in 100 iPhone owners.

Therefore, carrier promotion and trade-in become the entire distribution question. And it arrives at exactly the wrong moment, because carriers spent 2026 making subsidies more conditional rather than more generous. Those subsidies are now concentrated on specific unlimited tiers, and eligibility for the existing base has tightened.

Interest in the form factor is real, but shallow. Asked to name their top three wants in a next phone, 15.1% of iPhone owners chose switching from a flat screen to a foldable, which is statistically the same as Samsung owners at 15.8%. So, Apple’s base is not resistant to the idea at all. However, it ranks well below longer battery life at 54.4% and a better camera at 39.3%, and it lands roughly level with new AI features at 17.2%. Among 18- to 29-year-old iPhone owners it rises to 21.9%, and above 60 it falls to 6.5%.

Source: Recon Analytics US consumer survey (May 2025 to July 2026, iPhone owners n = 56,216, next-phone budget n = 51,700)

Strong iPhone Installed Base in Postpaid is Major Advantage for Apple

The question on the iPhone Fold was never whether Apple can build a good folding phone. It is that the category has sat flat at <2% for two years, and the book-style corner Apple is entering is the narrowest and most affluent consumer set, but Apple does have a base no more hostile to foldables than Samsung’s own, plus a young, high income, postpaid segment that is measurably ready to move. So, whether that converts comes down to the price and what the carriers are willing to put on the table.

For analysis of foldables by age, carrier, ethnicity, state or city/DMA, reach out to [email protected]

Hanish Bhatia
Hanish Bhatia
Vice President of Device Intelligence

Apple has launched a leasing program in partnership with Klarna. While Apple has experimented many times in the past with device finance options, this time may be different.

Firstly, let’s look at the issue Apple is trying to address. The US market recorded lowest device upgrade rates in last 3 years with the device lifecycle inching closer to 40+ months. The US carriers are posturing more controlled and targeted device subsidies in 2026, rather than broad based offers for switchers and upgraders. Even though carriers are raising subsidies with discounts going as high as $1,300, the reconciliation shows that headline offers on flagship launches stay aggressive while aggregate subsidy dollars are squeezed. It means subsidies are not disappearing, it is becoming concentrated and conditional. The subsidies are now more targeted to specific unlimited tiers with tighter eligibility for the existing base. It’s clear that carriers want to retain and attract high value subscribers rather than focusing on just subscriber number growth.

In the week of 22nd July, all three US national carriers reported Q2 2026 earnings. The story was same across all carriers, i.e. growth is now coming from pricing, convergence and retention economics rather than from handset subsidies.

  • Verizon was the most explicit in terms of direction. Their equipment revenue fell nearly 20%, more than $1.2bn year over year, on upgrade volumes down about 27%. The company attributed that to customers holding devices longer and to what it called a strategic decision to reduce spending on device subsidies. Promotional acquisition costs fell roughly 15% year over year and promotional retention costs about 17%, while the quarter still delivered 184,000 postpaid phone net adds and a record 40.1% adjusted EBITDA margin. Verizon has now demonstrated it can grow subscribers while spending less on devices, which retires the strongest historical argument for heavy subsidy.
  • AT&T grew wireless service revenue 3.3% on 432,000 postpaid phone net adds and credited customer growth plus pricing actions taken during the quarter, not device promotion. It raised postpaid phone ARPU while cutting churn to 0.86% and posted a 39.1% adjusted EBITDA margin, its highest since refocusing the business on advanced connectivity.
  • T-Mobile beat on EPS and guided third-quarter postpaid net adds to roughly 250,000, below the second quarter. Morgan Stanley and Bank of America both pressed management on whether it can keep raising prices without leaning on subsidies. The answer was that the business is increasingly driven by CLV (customer lifetime value) and network strength rather than promotional offers.

However, despite the net adds subscriber growth, purchase of new devices is expected to go down as the subsidies get more optimized. As per Recon Analytics survey, device subsidies was selected among Top 4 reasons for buying a new device.

Chart showing US consumer smartphone purchase drivers and subsidy importance

Now while the carriers are trying to control the subsidies, the price of devices are going up, especially with price of memory rising upto 300% for premium devices in just 12 months. This is causing further divergence between controlling the cost of subsidies and selling more devices.

So, the solution is to partially move the cost of subsidies elsewhere. And Apple has had several attempts at this in the past with iPhone Upgrade Program (2015), Apple Card Installments (2019), Apple Pay Later (2023), but this time it’s different. Because with third-party financing with Klarna, Apple has created a parallel channel that holds monthly payments low and lowers the device lifecycle without the cost of financing going to Apple or the carrier’s balance sheet.

As per Recon Analytics survey data on wireless channels, over 85% of the US consumers prefer buying from carriers directly, while only 15% prefer buying directly from third-party store or website. The third-party includes the big box retail as well as independent OEM stores & website. In a separate survey on store visitations, 5% indicated they visit Apple store for wireless needs. While apple store remains a smaller channel in larger market structure, it’s still significantly important to open a new channel with faster device upgrade option to consumers.

Prefered Purchasing Channel

Source: Recon Analytics US consumer survey (Nov 2023 to April 2025, n = 59,920)

USA Carrier Store Visitation Rate

Source: Recon Analytics US consumer survey (April 2025 to June 2025, n = 59,920)

Impact on Carriers

So far, Apple hasn’t opened the leasing program to prepaid, MVNOs, or cable carriers. Paying in full, a consumer can buy an unlocked device and activate with any carrier at checkout. Under the lease, that choice narrows to Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile postpaid at signing. Notably, Apple Card Monthly Installments includes Boost Mobile and the lease program does not, which points to a negotiated agreement likely priced on activation volume.

It means the activation is still gated, but Recon Analytics confirmed with Apple sales specialists that consumers can switch carriers once the lease is executed, and the payment is owed to Klarna regardless of who provides service. The door to churn over to cable and prepaid is open under this program. What Apple still controls is the checkout gate and adding one name can have a significant impact.

Why it works for Klarna

The core mechanics behind a lease is that an installment plan amortizes the full price whereas a lease amortizes only capitalized cost minus residual, plus it charges a rent on the money at risk. The customer funds roughly half the asset’s economic life and pays rent on the rest. The chart below shows that on $35/month on Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max retailing at $1199 before tax. A consumer will pay $840 in 24 months (i.e. 70% full price) while the residual value of the device is still at $621 (based on ‘retail’ prices trends in refurbished market for iPhone 15 Pro Max). That gap creates the value for Klarna.

Meanwhile, Apple’s largest gain is cycle compression, not margin. Klarna earns net interest margin, Furthermore, Klarna also sold $1.2bn of those receivables in the quarter, so it may not be the ultimate holder of this paper at all. A win-win for all.