CIRP Survey Suggests 78 Percent of All Apple Customers Own an iPad

Ryan Christoffel, writing at 9to5Mac regarding a paywalled survey report from CIRP:

CIRP recently performed a survey of Apple customers to get a sense of how the company’s three tentpole products — iPhone, iPad, and Mac — are performing. One focus was on understanding the power of Apple’s ecosystem, as determined by customers who own multiple products.

Michael Levin and Josh Lowitz write at CIRP:

iPhone remains the most dominant product, with 94% of recent Apple customers owning one. iPads are next, with 78% owning one. Mac computers have much smaller penetration, at 36% of recent customers.

74% of customers, virtually all iPad owners, own an iPad and an iPhone. Only 30% own all three, as that number is limited by Apple customers’ relative lack of Macs.

Different people may draw their own conclusions on the data, but for me, the most interesting element is easily the iPad’s popularity.

I don’t find this surprising. But if it’s true, it truly shows just how much longer people hold onto their iPads than their iPhones. If the average customer replaced their iPad as frequently as they do their iPhone, you’d expect Apple’s iPad revenue to be remarkably close to their iPhone revenue. But they’re not close. In their most recent quarter, iPhone revenue was 7× iPad revenue. And Mac revenue was slightly ahead of iPad revenue — but that might be more a function of average selling prices being so much higher for Macs than iPads, not replacement cycles.

Update: It goes without saying that any consumer survey is only as good as the surveyor. But CIRP, in particular, has posted some dubious ones, to say the least. Jeff Johnson pointed out on Mastodon that back in 2023, CIRP published a survey that claimed the Mac Pro accounted for 43 percent of all Mac desktop sales, with the Mac Mini and Mac Studio each accounting for only 4 percent each. That’s just bananas. That’s not like maybe wrong, that’s not gotta be a little wrong, that’s how could anyone publish this? wrong. It’s hard to believe anything from CIRP after they published that.

★ Friday, 6 June 2025