The average iPhone owner has been holding onto their device for about 4.5 years since the iPhone 12 launched in 2020.
Morgan Stanley thinks Apple just found the thing that finally makes those owners reach for their wallets. Analyst Erik Woodring argues that Apple’s latest AI capabilities, particularly the overhauled Siri and Apple Intelligence suite, will trigger a multi-year hardware refresh cycle the likes of which the company hasn’t seen since 5G.
The upgrade math
Apple’s AI features require 12 GB of unified memory, which effectively draws a line in the sand between devices that can handle Apple Intelligence and those that can’t.
Morgan Stanley forecasts that Apple Intelligence could prompt nearly 500 million iPhone shipments over a two-year span, touching a pool of more than 1.3 billion active devices worldwide.
