If you want to convince your friends you're rich, buy an iPhone, season your food with soy sauce, and get a Samsung TV for the house.

That's according to new research that shows that owning an Apple iPhone is now the most common sign of wealth.

The smartphone brand has topped a list of brands most likely to indicate a high level of income, with the Apple iPad in close second.

Samsung TVs were another strong indicator of a well-paid job, with Android handsets – the primary competitor to the iPhone – only just beating out soy sauce.

The research into brands most likely to portray wealth was conducted as part of a new study from the United States National Bureau of Economic Research.

Researchers claim those who carry an iPhone have a 69 per cent chance of being a ‘high-income’ individual, which they defined as being in the top quartile of income for households of a certain type – like single adult or couple with dependents, for example.

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Owning an Apple iPhone was easily the biggest cultural trait to indicate wealth in the US, with rival Android-powered handsets only just managing to beat Soy Sauce and HP-branded fax machines and printers, the National Bureau of Economic Research data revealed

The latest National Bureau of Economic Research study used the most recent data, which was gathered back in 2016, and compared it with similar data sets from 1992 and 2004 to track the change in brands favoured by high-income consumers.

The data was obtained by Mediamark Research Intelligence, which had a sample size of around 6,300 American consumers.

The company used a mixture of written questionnaires, as well as face-to-face interviews to work out information on household income.

According to the University of Chicago economists, owning an iPhone is the cultural trait most indicative of being rich in the United States at the moment.

‘Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone,’ wrote University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica, who authored the new study.

In previous years, a similar status was awarded to Grey Poupon Dijon mustard, which had a 62.2 per cent chance of being found in a wealthy household in 1992.

Researchers compared the latest data, which was gathered in 2016, with similar data from 1992 and 2004. The breakdown of the top ten shows the cultural traits most indicative of being wealthy in each year, with Grey Poupon Dijon mustard being the strongest indicator in 1992, Land O' Lakes branded butter taking the top spot in 2004, and the iPhone in 2016. The Apple-branded smartphone was also the strongest indicator ever seen in the study at 69.1%

The top-of-the-line Apple iPhone X, which was announced back in September 2017, starts from £999 ($999) and rises to £1,149 ($1,149) for the 256GB capacity model. Owning an iPhone is the most sign of wealth in the United States, according to a new research paper

Land O’ Lakes regular butter, which retails for $5.49 for 16oz (£4.12 for 0.4L), was the brand most likely to indicate wealth status in the 2004 data set.

The most recent data showed those who own an Apple-branded smartphone are most likely to be in the top 25 per cent of earners.

Elsewhere on the list, researchers found Kikkoman branded Soy sauce, Samsung-made televisions, and Cascade Complete washing detergent were all brands typically linked to high income.

The latter, equivalent to other P&G brands like Fairy or Bold, was in ninth place, just ahead of Ziploc bags – a US-only brand for resealable freezer bags.

US mobile networks Verizon and AT&T, akin to EE and Vodafone in the UK, also scored highly on the list, showing the emphasis on smartphone as an indicator of wealth.

Cascade Complete washing detergent was another brand linked to those in the top quartile of earners in the United States. Resealable sandwich and freezer bag brand, Ziploc, also feratured in the list, ranking in tenth place in the top brands associated with wealth

WHICH BRANDS ARE MOST OFTEN ASSOCIATED WITH HIGH INCOME? Apple's hugely-successful smartphone brand has topped a list of brands most likely to indicate a high level of income, with the company's iPad tablet range in close second The iPhone is the most common sign of wealth in the United States, a new study from the United States National Bureau of Economic Research found. University of Chicago economists tried to track the change in brands favoured by high-income earners in the United States. To do this, the researchers used survey data from more than 6,300 Americans, which was gathered in 2016, and compared it with similar data sets from 1992 and 2004. According to the University of Chicago economists, owning an iPhone is the cultural trait most indicative of being rich in the United States today. ‘Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone,’ wrote University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica, who authored the new study. 1992 Grey Poupon Dijon mustard (62.2%) Kodak film (61.6%) Thomas branded muffins (61.5%) Cascade Lemon detergent (59%) Scotch Magic (58.7%) Cut-Rite waxed paper (57.7%) Philadelphia cream cheese (57.7%) Kikkoman soy sauce (57.5%) Hellmann’s mayonnaise (57.4%) Sylvania TV set (57.4%) 2016 Apple iPhone (69.1%) Apple iPad (66.9%) Verizon mobile contract (61%) Android smartphone (59.5%) Kikkoman soy sauce (59%) HP printer or HP fax machine (58.2%) AT&T mobile contract (58.1%) Samsung TV set (58%) Cascade Complete detergent (57.6%) Ziploc resealable bags (57.5%) Advertisement

Using an iPad was the second strongest indicator of wealth, the 2016 data showed.

iPhone and iPad devices are typically more expensive than rival devices from other hardware manufacturers, including the likes of Samsung, Google and OnePlus.

The flagship iPhone X, which was announced back in September 2017, starts from £999 ($999) and rises to £1,149 ($1,149) for the 256GB capacity model.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro, the flagship tablet in the line-up, can cost as much as £1,249 ($1,279) for the 512GB storage option with cellular connectivity.

Apple also sells a keyboard for its iPad Pro devices for £169 ($169), and £89 ($99) for its Apple Pencil stylus which allows users to annotate and draw on the glass display.

Second only to the Apple iPhone, using an iPad is one of the strongest indicators of wealth in the United States right now, the latest figures reveal

‘Knowing whether someone owns an iPad in 2016 allows us to guess correctly whether the person is in the top or bottom income quartile 69 percent of the time,’ the economists wrote.

Gadgets built by the company co-founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were not only a strong indicator of wealth, but also hinted at a higher level of education.

Data from the researchers also showed those who own an iPhone are 62.4 per cent more likely to be educated to at least a degree level.

‘The specific goods reflect waves of technological innovation with the more educated separating themselves from the less educated by being earlier adopters of new technologies,’ the study notes.

The latest study revealed the brands most likely to indicate a higher level of education (bottom-right) was also taken by Apple, with the iPhone most likely to point to at least a college level education. The data gathered in 2005 revealed the latest operating system by Microsoft was the strongest pointer that an individual may have attended college

Apple iPad was the second most likely indicator of a college level of education, while owning an Amazon Kindle e-reader, subscribing to Netflix, and buying coffee from Starbucks all featured in the top ten list.

Buying Kodak film and owning Windows XP were the strongest indicator of a higher level of education in similar studies back in 1992 and 2004, respectively.

The National Bureau of Economic Research study was designed to see whether different groups in the United States – rich and poor, black and white, men and women – have seen their preferences in consumer brands, media consumption, and social attitudes diverge over time.

The economists used a machine learning algorithm to conclude that ‘cultural differences,’ or how common brands and experiences vary between these groups, have remained constant.

‘This take-away runs against the popular narrative of the US becoming an increasingly divided society,’ the researchers concluded.

The full paper, 'Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time', was recently published on the National Bureau of Economic Research website.