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Billionaire Apple Shareholder Warren Buffett Remains Loyal to Samsung Flip Phone

One of Apple’s biggest shareholders, billionaire Warren Buffett says he still prefers his retro Samsung flip phone over iPhone.
Sputnik

The 87-year-old American business magnate who is considered by some to be one of the most successful investors in the world claims he has no incentive to replace his retro Samsung flip phone with a smartphone.

Even though Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway is one of the top five Apple shareholders with share worth around $23 billion, the investor says he is not letting himself be tempted by Apple CEO Tim Cook's annual Christmas cards in which he tries to induce Buffett to buy an iPhone.

"Tim Cook sent me a Christmas card again this year saying he's going to sell me an iPhone this year," Buffett said in a recent interview with CNBC, "He keeps sending me these reminders every Christmas."

Despite Tim Cook's determination to make him a happy owner of an iPhone, Buffett said it is unlikely he will ever start using a smartphone as he is quite satisfied with his old-fashined flip phone.

"When I actually buy it, it's all over, folks. The last person has bought it," he said, adding that despite his personal preferences, he doesn't believe the market is saturated for iPhones.

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But Buffett is not the only person on Earth who is immune to the iPhone infection, with some 510 million flip phones shipped globally in 2016. Even celebrities like the head creative director of Chanel Karl Lagerfeld, singer Rihanna and actor Chris Pine have been spotted with retro flip phones.

"I kind of like the simplifying down," the star of the futuristic Star Trek franchise said on Good Morning America, adding that "the flip world is a whole world you gotta get into."

Retro phones may in fact soon become the next big trend and overflow the market, with Motorola already reviving its iconic RAZR phone in October last year and Nokia releasing a new version of the 3310 phone, 17 years after the original version was launched. 

​Experts claim that what makes these basic phones so magnetic is their low price tag as well as the nostalgia associated with them.

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