Brisk Apple iPhone Sales Dominated by Upgrades

From PC World: Existing iPhone owners upgrading to the iPhone 4 were mostly responsible for draining the stock of the coveted phone at retail stores across the U.S. Thursday. Seventy-seven percent of iPhone customers in line at Apple Stores on Thursday were repeat iPhone users, according to researchers at Piper Jaffray.

The Piper Jaffray numbers come from a research it shared with its clients and also reported by publications such as Fortune. The survey results give an interesting view of who Apple's die hard iPhone customers, willing stand in line for hours, really are. Here are the highlights.

Piper Jaffray reports that 38 percent more people upgraded their iPhone the first day the latest model became available compared to last year. In 2009 Jaffray reported 56 percent of iPhone 3GS buyers on launch day were upgrading their handsets and 38 percent of iPhone 3G buyers from 2008.

"Apple has in three years built brand loyalty in the phone market that compels users to upgrade to the latest version and wait in line for one to six hours to pick up their iPhone," wrote Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

As far as wooing new iPhone users from other smartphone bases, 6 percent of non-iPhone users were switching from Research in Motion's Blackberry, 3 percent from Google's Android and 2 percent were from Nokia.

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