What about them? Businesses run ads all the time, and obviously iPhones are not free. People can see that prices for mobile network access with offers of “free” phones are much higher than without “free” phones.
> Sacconaghi says he expects 16 percent of Apple’s installed base — 900 million iPhones — will buy a new iPhone in fiscal 2019.
> Our customers are holding on to their older iPhones a bit longer than in the past,” Cook said
> He wrote, “In our view, the single most important controversy surrounding Apple today is the iPhone replacement cycle - despite the iPhone installed base growing +9% last year, we now expect units to be down -19% in fiscal 2019, implying a material pushout in upgrade rates.”
> Apple recently stopped disclosing how many iPhone units it sells each quarter. Instead, in its fiscal Q1 earnings report, Apple started to report an iPhone installed base that includes both new and used iPhones.
