Teen survey reveals Apple Intelligence will push more iPhone 16 upgrades

A new survey of teens in the U.S. reveals that iPhone ownership remains extremely high. And while the number of teens upgrading to the iPhone 16 currently remains steady, Apple Intelligence looks set to push an acceleration of new purchases in the months ahead.

iPhone ownership remains high among U.S. teens

Piper Sandler shared the results of its semi-annual Gen Z survey. This is the 48th such survey, and it involved 13,515 teens across 47 U.S. states.

One unsurprising finding was that 87% of teens surveyed own an iPhone.

That’s a massive number, for sure. But it’s largely in line with trends from past years. iPhone ownership remains strong among U.S. teens.

Where things get interesting, though, is the survey’s findings around planned iPhone 16 upgrades.

• 22% plan to upgrade to an iPhone 16 soon
• this is slightly down from the 23% for iPhone 15 last year
• which was down from 24% for iPhone 14 in 2022

But there’s more to the story.

Apple Intelligence will drive stronger upgrade cycle

On one hand, we see a slight trend of decreased interest in iPhone upgrades.

However, the survey also asked specifically whether Apple Intelligence would motivate an upgrade.

A much higher 30% of respondents said that they will upgrade in the next 6 months because of Apple Intelligence.

What this indicates is that, while the current iPhone 16 features have evoked roughly the same amount of interest as past models, Apple Intelligence is going to push more upgrades.

Currently, iPhone 16 models ship without any Apple Intelligence features. However, the first set of features will debut later this month.

It’s the AI features coming later on, though, that are likely to compel more teen upgrades.

iOS 18.2 is expected to bring Genmoji, Image Playground, ChatGPT integration, and more. It’s likely to arrive in December, which could lead to a fresh wave of upgrades—especially among teens who don’t want to be left out of all the fun these new tools will provide.

Do the survey results surprise you in any way? Let us know in the comments.