Ringing around the Christmas Tree: 1.5m Australians received their mobile phone as a gift

Santa should be making calls to Apple and Samsung following the release of figures which reveal 8.3% of Australian mobile phone customers use a phone they received as a present.

According to new data from Roy Morgan Research, 1.5 million of Australia’s 18 million mobile phone users are currently using gifted handsets. Of these users, 65% were given a brand new model, while 35% received a phone that was second-hand.

Mobile phones as presents were most popular in the 14-17 age group, where a third of mobile phone users received their phone as a gift, 73% of whom received a brand new phone.

One in 11 mobile owners aged over 65 use a gifted phone. However these older recipients were 38% more likely than those under 25 to be presented with a used phone.

Women are 60% more likely than men to be given a phone, with 10.2% of women using a phone they received as a present compared with 6.3% of men.

Women are also more likely to have received a new handset: 68% of mobile phones given as presents to women were new, higher than the 59% of those given to men.

But, which brand is most likely to be found under the Christmas Tree? Apple’s iPhone is the most bestowed handset brand overall, while Samsung is the brand most often bought and given new.

476,000 current iPhone users were given the handset as a gift, but less than half of these phones (232,000) were new.

Fewer Samsung owners overall were given their phone (368,000), yet the vast majority of these (280,000) were new gifts.

Roy Morgan’s Tim Martin said that Samsung could have lost the Christmas retail race by failing to release their new model before the end of the year.

“The release of the iPhone 6 in September may have resulted in many tweens and teens being told to be patient and expect a small square box under the tree on Christmas morning,” he said.

“With the new Samsung Galaxy S6 not due to be released until early next year, this may have given the latest iPhone an edge on Santa’s sleigh.”

Spending big to leave an iPhone under the tree this year? Compare low-rate credit cards on Mozo today.