iPhone 5S Color Conversion Kit Will Compete With Phone Repair Industry

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iPhone 5s Color Conversion Kit (Source MacRumors.com)

More Competition for the Cell Phone Repair Business?

Apple has announced the unveiling of its new flagship iPhone will be on September 10th.

Although the announcement date has been released, it’s uncertain if Apple’s announcement will be for the upcoming iPhone 5s or for Apple’s rumored low-cost cell phone option, nicknamed for now the “iPhone 5C.” Pictures have emerged showing an iPhone that would give consumers options directly from Apple to purchase their phone with a pre-installed color conversion kit, including the colors green, pink, gold and, of course, white.

This is one more small bit of bad news for iPhone repair businesses.

While I’m sure mileage will vary, I asked a colleague how much of his business was strictly installing color conversion kits on iPhones. He told me it was about 10% of his overall business, citing that a majority of these color conversion jobs were from retail customers whose phone did not need a repair due to a cracked digitizer assembly.

When I asked another client, he cited around 10-15% color conversions but noted that most customers had a broken LCD screen before selecting a color conversion option at the time of the repair.

Regardless of how large color conversion kit installations are to the iPhone repair industry, Apple’s expanded color options are sure to take a few sales from repair shops over time. Recently, Apple announced it would also be repairing broken iPhone 5 LCD screens for $149 through their Apple stores. Combine these two small bits of news and Apple appears they want a piece of the mobile repair industries pie, even if it’s one small bite at a time.

Really makes you think: if the trend continues overtime, what other services could Apple offer that will compete with the cell phone repair business? Likewise, just how much business could it drive away from third party repair shops?