iPhone sales in the UK: 2024 statistics

We’ve looked into Apple’s most valuable product, the iPhone, to see how much the latest models cost and how many people in the UK own one of these smartphones. Since Apple does not publish its sales figures for the UK, we’ve looked into the price of each iPhone sold each year in the UK using readily available data on smartphone penetration rates. This type of insight is useful for those considering buying shares in Apple.

iPhone sales statistics UK: Highlights

• An estimated 8.4 million iPhones were sold in the UK in 2023, around 23,000 a day.
• In 2023, iOS holds around 37% of the total UK mobile market share.
• 232 million iPhones were sold worldwide in 2022.
• To purchase an iPhone 15 (£799), the average Brit needs to work for 46 hours.
• A typical Brit needs to spend 3% of their average yearly income after tax to buy an iPhone 15.
• There were more than 1.3 billion active iPhones worldwide in 2022.
• The iPhone 12 was the most popular iPhone in the UK in Q3 2023, with a 46% approval rate.
• Apple generated over $200 billion (£150 billion) in revenue from iPhone sales in 2023.
• There were more than 2 billion active Apple devices worldwide in 2023.

How many iPhones are sold in the UK each year?

An estimated 8.4 million iPhones were sold in the UK in 2023, which is around 23,000 sold every day. There were around 8.6 million iPhones sold in 2022 and a whopping 8.8 million iPhones sold in 2021.

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How many iPhones are sold globally each year?

It is estimated that 232 million iPhones were sold worldwide in 2022. This is down slightly from the estimated 242 million sold in 2021 but up from the 196.9 million sold in 2020.

How much is spent on iPhones each year?

Apple generated just over $200 billion (over £150 billion) in revenue from iPhone sales in 2023. This is down slightly from 2022, when Apple generated $205 billion (£160 billion) in revenue from iPhone sales, but up from 2021, when iPhone revenue was approximately $192 billion (£150 billion).

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iPhone price history in the UK: How long would it take to afford one?

To earn the money to purchase an iPhone 15 (£799), the average Brit needs to work for 46 hours. The cost of the basic model is almost 3% of the average yearly income after tax.

Below, you can explore the price history of different iPhones in the UK at release and how long it would have taken to afford it with the average hourly pay that year.

How many iPhone users are there worldwide?

Research shows that there were more than 1.3 billion active iPhones worldwide in 2022. Overall, it was reported that Apple had more than 2 billion active devices worldwide as of 2023 stats.

The number of iPhone users around the world has increased each year, going from around 10 million in 2008 to 1.3 billion in 2022, an impressive increase of 13240%. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of active iPhone users increased by 8%.

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What is the iOS market share in the UK?

According to the figures for the first 9 months of 2023, Apple has a 37% iOS market share, with almost all the rest of the market taken by Android. The iOS market share has been close to the 40% mark since 2020, with some monthly fluctuation as it typically increases in the months following a new iPhone release.

Methodology

We estimated the number of iPhones purchased per year by adding the number of new iPhone users to the number of existing iPhone users who would want an upgrade. This was estimated by:

Number of new iPhone users:

• The number of new smartphone users each year was found by multiplying the UK smartphone penetration (from Statista) with that year’s UK population, as reported by the ONS, and subtracting from this the product of the smartphone penetration and the UK population of the previous year.
• This was then multiplied by the average market share of the iPhone that year, according to Kantar. (n.b. Kantar’s data was updated monthly, which meant that we added each data set together to find this average).

Number of existing iPhone users upgrading that year:

• The percentage of people upgrading to new iPhones every year was calculated from the results of a Strategy Analysis study.
• This showed that the average consumer upgraded their smartphone every 33 months.
• The number of iPhone users in a year, minus the number of new iPhone users, gives the number of pre-existing iPhone users. This was then divided by the average number of years (2.75 years) iPhone users take to upgrade, which gives the number of iPhone users upgrading that year.

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Matt Mckenna
UK Head of Communications
T: +44 20 8191 8806