Image credit – iFixit
Throughout the whole of last year, Apple ran their $29 battery replacement program which was the company’s way of apologizing for throttling iPhones without informing its users beforehand. The $29 price tag was $50 cheaper than what Apple would have normally charged, so it’s not surprising that many customers took them up on their offer.
How many customers, you ask? According to a report from Daring Fireball (via 9to5Mac), it seems that Apple replaced a whopping 11 million iPhone batteries in the year. This is versus what Apple would normally replace during a year, which is around 1-2 million batteries. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook recently stated that the cheap battery replacement program could have been one of the reasons why iPhone sales aren’t as good as Apple had hoped.
This makes a lot of sense, especially with users only having to pay $29 to get a phone that almost feels like new. Since batteries degrade over time, we imagine that there are probably many iPhone 6 users who were experiencing less than stellar battery life, so to pay $29 to get a phone whose battery can last them through the day and then some, it does seem like a much, much cheaper option than paying $1,000 for a brand new iPhone.
It remains to be seen now that the battery replacement program has ended if iPhone sales will be better in 2019, although even at $79 for a battery replacement, it is still a much more tempting offer than a $1,000 handset that will end up getting throttled anyway.
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