Apple's iPhone Air has proven more popular than its predecessor, capturing 6.8 percent of U.S. iPhone 17 sales in Q4 2025 compared to the 2.9 percent share the iPhone 16 Plus achieved in the same period. The ultra-thin device appears to have validated Apple's decision to retire the Plus model, which struggled to find its market niche over multiple generations.

However, the Air's gains came partly at the expense of the iPhone 17 Pro, whose market share dropped from 34.9 percent to 30.6 percent year over year. Meanwhile, the Pro Max remained steady at 55.5 percent. International markets showed even stronger adoption, with the Air capturing 11.2 percent in South Korea, 8.9 percent in Japan, and 8.4 percent in Singapore.

Beyond sales performance, Ookla's testing revealed that Apple's in-house C1X modem in the iPhone Air has reached download parity with Qualcomm's X80 modem in the Pro Max, even outperforming it on latency in 19 of 22 tested markets. Upload speeds remain Qualcomm's advantage, with the X80 holding up to a 32 percent lead in some regions due to more mature Uplink Carrier Aggregation technology.