iPhone 7 Plus outsold 7 in the US in the first 48 hours of availability, Slice Intelligence analysis of 32k receipts suggests
Data from Slice Intelligence just revealed the first online sales figures for the iPhone 7, and early shoppers prefer the Plus.
Context & Ripple Effects
Slice Intelligence's read of roughly 32k online receipts puts the iPhone 7 Plus ahead of the iPhone 7 in the first 48 hours of US availability — an early signal that buyers were trading up to the larger, pricier model rather than defaulting to the base phone.
That signal held up beyond launch week: the 7 Plus went on to become the second-best selling phone in China last year, trailing only the OPPO R9s, while later US mix data showed the premium tier absorbing demand — the iPhone X took about 30% of US iPhone sales in its first 30 days.
First-order effects
- Apple's early-production and channel-inventory calculus tilts toward the Plus, since the higher-ASP model is what US online shoppers are actually buying out of the gate.
Second-order effects
- Rivals anchored to large-screen flagships — OPPO's R9s already sits above the 7 Plus in China — face a competitor whose big-phone demand is proven in both the US and Chinese markets, raising the stakes on their own phablet lineups.
Third-order effects
- If the trade-up pattern holds across cycles, Apple's lineup economics restructure around the premium tier: by late 2017 the 8/8 Plus pair accounted for just 16% of quarterly US sales as the X-tier took share, and Counterpoint's 2025 reading shows base-model strength returning in China (base iPhone 17 sales nearly doubled over the 16 there) — meaning the size/price mix is a lever Apple keeps re-pulling rather than a settled hierarchy.
The trend: Smartphone demand keeps migrating up the size-and-price ladder, making the launch-week mix between base and Plus-tier models a recurring leading indicator for Apple's revenue per unit.