iPhone 14 Off to a Stronger Start Than Last Year’s Model

Apple’s iPhone 14 is driving about 5% more traffic to the company’s website than the iPhone 13 models announced at about this time last year, according to Similarweb estimates for the first few days after the product launch.

Key takeaways

• The iPhone 14 launch drove more than 5 million visits to the product and sales pages of apple.com on the day of the launch announcement, Sept. 7, compared with 4.8 million on the iPhone 13 launch day.
• On the other hand, the iPhone 12 launch in 2020 generated more excitement, driving 6.9 million first-day visits and about 20% more traffic in the first few days after its launch.

Quickly surpassing the iPhone 13 in current traffic

Traffic to the product and shopping pages for the iPhone 14 on apple.com is several times higher than for those related to the iPhone 13, suggesting that those shopping for a phone aren’t interested in settling for last year’s model. On the day of its launch, the iPhone 14 brought in more than 5 million visits, compared with 4.8 million for the iPhone 13.

More traffic at launch than iPhone 13 …

If we compare the first six days of traffic for the iPhone 14 with what previous models attracted to product and shopping pages on apple.com in the six days after launch, the iPhone 14 is doing better than the iPhone 13. That’s contrary to the predictions of some analysts who thought buyer interest might be soft, particularly in the context of other trends in the economy.

“This is in line with what we’re hearing from the industry about iPhone 14 preorders doing as well or a little better than for iPhone 13,” said Aria Ertefaie, an analyst with Similarweb Investor Solutions.

… but not as much as for the iPhone 12 (or iPhone 11)

Cumulative desktop web visits over the period were about 5% higher compared with the first days after the launch of the iPhone 13 in 2021, although not as high as for the iPhone 12 in 2020 or the iPhone 11 in 2019.

Searching for a new iPhone

In anticipation of the launch, search interest in the iPhone 14 had already surpassed that for the iPhone 13 in August. Search volume for the iPhone 13, which peaked when it launched in September 2021, was down to 9 million in August, while iPhone 14 hit 14 million searches and was still rising.

Over the last 28 days, organic traffic from searches for iPhone 14 has been led by apple.com, followed by macrumors.com and other media websites.

Apple also commanded more than 82% of the paid search traffic related to iPhone 14, followed by electronics retailers and carriers including Verizon and AT&T.

Off to a strong start

Contrary to the lowered expectations for the iPhone 14, it is drawing more interest than last year’s model – albeit, not quite as high as the iPhones of a couple of years ago.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

Disclaimer: All data, reports and other materials provided or made available by Similarweb are based on data obtained from third parties, including estimations and extrapolations based on such data. Similarweb shall not be responsible for the accuracy of the materials and shall have no liability for any decision by any third party based in whole or in part on the materials.

Photo by Victor Carvalho on Unsplash

by David F. Carr

David covers social media, digital advertising, and generative AI. With a background in web trends since the 1990s, he’s also the author of "Social Collaboration for Dummies".