http://appzdev.

com/mac-iphone-blog/2011/09/iphone-salesstatistics-2010-and-2011/ iPhone Sales Statistics

Apple has released its sales figures for the second quarter of 2011 and the numbers are nothing short of absolutely amazing. In fact, they are record breaking. Apple has announced that it sold a whopping 18.65 million iPhones in Q2 alone. To put that into perspective, Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones in Q4 of 2010. In Q1 of 2011, the company pushed an astounding 16.24 million iPhones. The 18.65 million sold in Q2 represents a 113% growth over the same quarter in 2010. Needless to say, sales were obviously boosted by the release of the Verizon iPhone which was launched back in February. As for Apples other products, Apple sold 3.76 million Macs (28% increase), 9.02 million iPods (17% decrease) and 4.69 million iPads during Q2. These sales figures come on the heels of a report that states that Apples next-generation iPhone is going to be shipping at some point in September of this year.

iPhone Sales Statistics Q1 2011

Wikipedia has a nice list of iPhone sales statistics (totals) as they were reported by Apple each quarter. These statistics range from Q3 2007 to Q1 2011. Unfortunately, sales by Apple are not reported by device, so some quarterly sales are combined sales of iPhone 3G + iPhone 3GS respectively iPhone 3GS + iPhone 4. I tried to extrapolate individual device sales by making the assumption that over time periods where two different iPhone devices were being sold, the newer one was likely to have sold more. Since were talking about Apple I choose a 70/30 split, meaning I assumed that 70% of the sales were for the newer device. This seems about right since newer devices have always sold better than the previous generation, but also according to some developer statistics.

For example the Bump developers reporting an iOS 4 adoption rate of 90% in January 2011 across all iOS devices (1st generation devices can not install iOS 4). Or the Surgeworks iOS 4 Adoption report which contains usage statistics of 1st generation device users of only 2.5% for one app, and 5% iPhone 3G users for another app. The left side of the following pie charts shows the total number of iPhone devices sold to that date, with sales periods of two devices combined. The pie charts on the right show the extrapolated sales statistics for individual iPhone device generations, and which OpenGL ES version they support. Notice how in Q1 2010 about two third of all iPhone devices supported only OpenGL ES 1.x, but within a year the picture turned just the other way. In Q1 2011 two thirds of iPhone devices sold were capable of running OpenGL ES 2.x code! This has a lot to do with two factors: the iPhone 4 sold like crazy, whereas the last OpenGL ES 1.1 iPhone being sold (iPhone 3G) was discontinued in June 2010. Meaning since Q3 2010 Apple does no longer sell OpenGL ES 1.1 iPhone devices. And OpenGL ES 1.1 iPod Touches stopped selling in Q4 2010 as well.

All iOS Device Sales Statistics Q2 2011

According to Unwired, Apple reported to have sold 200 million iOS Devices during the iOS 5 announcement. 25 Million of those were iPads. These are the most up to date sales stats, which I assume to be the Q2 2011 statistics. Based on Wikipedias numbers which states 83 Mio. iPhone devices sold vs. over 60 Mio. iPod Touch devices sold, the remaining 175 Mio. should be 42% iPod Touch (74 Mio) and 58% iPhone (102 Mio). The percentage of OpenGL ES 2.x capable iPhone devices to those only supporting OpenGL ES 1.1 was 31% in Q1 2010 and jumped to 64% in Q1 2011. Assuming the 1.1 to 2.x ratio is the same for iPod Touch, that gives us 137 Mio iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) with OpenGL ES 2.x capability versus 63 Mio devices (1st & 2nd generation iPhone / iPod Touch) which dont support 2.x. That means 70% of all iOS devices sold to date support OpenGL ES 2.x. This leaves us with only 30% of iOS devices not capable of running OpenGL ES 2.x code.

I dont want to lose 30% of my customers! You wont! Keep in mind that these statistics are only about devices sold. They do not reflect what has happened to these devices since, or how they are being used today. I can also assert that older devices are disappearing fast from the market. Even though 30% of the devices sold support only OpenGL ES 1.1, your potential customer base will be significantly less than the number of devices sold. This is for a variety of reasons:

device has been lost or was stolen device broken beyond use/repair device simply no longer in use device owned by a person who is unlikely to buy new apps Need iPhone development for your business? Contact Us

Particularly the last item must be considered: the device user. Again, the user is your potential customer, not the device. And in general all of these items are more likely to happen the older the device is. One commenter in one of the two GL ES 2.0 threads on the Cocos2D forum reported how happy users were to see a game running smoothly on their 1st generation devices. For me that is not proof that support for older devices is beneficial. To the contrary, I think it clearly shows us that old generation device users are much more selective about their purchases, are already giving up their love for their devices, and may be considering an upgrade because they may have stopped enjoying their devices. This contributes to the less likely to buy new apps factor. You can also assume that users of older devices have less expendable income, or are satisfied with the device as it is. If a user is actually happy with an old iOS device, its likely that person prefers to use apps and plays few(er) games or just keeps using the apps & games already owned. The number of potential customers you would lose if you released an OpenGL ES 2.0 game right now is maybe around 10% to 20% at most. Far less if your game is complex

and visually rich, and would suffer some performance or visual degradation on older devices anyway.

What about the near future? (Q1 2012)

Considering that 6 months from now, in Q1 2012, we will have seen the release of new iPhone devices (iPhone 5, possibly iPod 5) and thus another boom in sales, it is a better deal to start making some cool visual effects with shaders that look great on iPhone 4 and 5 rather than trying to still support 1st and 2nd generation devices. In particular if you need to put in some (or a lot of) effort to support the older devices, for example if you have to optimize the performance, reduce the feature set (eg no or limited Game Center support) or (god forbid) you need to ensure compatibility with iOS 3.0.1 or lower (CADisplayLink unavailable!). That time and effort are better spent on making a better OpenGL ES 2.x game! Obviously the decision also depends on how visually rich your game is going to be and whether you can expect to run into performance and other issues on older devices anyhow.