“Apple’s iPhone numbers are in from its opening weekend (and really, why not talk about this like a movie?) and they are boffo: 9 million units sold,” Sam Grobart reports for Businessweek. “To put that into context, last year’s first-weekend sales of the iPhone 5 were 5 million, so an increase of 80 percent is pretty awesome.”
“Last year is not like this year, for two important reasons. For starters, there were not one, but two iPhones newly on sale this weekend: the top-of-the-line iPhone 5S and the premium-economy iPhone 5C,” Grobart writes. “And while it seems that offering two models instead of just one did juice sales, it did so in an unexpected way: It appears to have made the more expensive model more attractive.”
“Apple doesn’t break out which model sells how much, but analysts and supply-chain watchers are saying the 5S won the weekend far and away. Perhaps some psychology and economic principles are at play here. If you have a new phone, the iPhone 5C, priced within $100 of the 5S, how many people will justify the extra $100 to get ‘the good one?’ Maybe you can attract customers with the lower-priced model, and once they’re on the site, or in the store, for ‘only’ an extra hundred bucks (an admittedly relative term, given what it takes around the world to earn an extra $100), they can get one that doesn’t say ‘I got the cheap one,'” Grobart writes. “But the other, much more important factor in the iPhone’s recent sales success is that this year’s launch included more countries than last year’s.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, um, this sounds eerily familiar:
It seems to me that Apple is using the iPhone 5c as a tool to push buyers to the 5s (well, at least those buyers who can grasp a simple value equation). Once Apple gets the customer to the websites or into the stores and the prospective buyer can see and/or hold both phones and learn that they’re only separated by a mere $100, my guess is that Apple figures they’ll have plenty of upsales occurring. Upsales that will boost Apple’s iPhone margins nicely. Oh, BTW, Apple’s going to sell a boatload of both models (and millions of 4S units too)! Are you listening, margin-loving Wall Street? – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, September 10, 2013
Related articles:
Report: iPhone 5s out sold iPhone 5c units 3.7 to 1 globally on launch weekend – September 23, 2013
Why would anyone buy an iPhone 5c instead of an iPhone 5s? – September 10, 2013
There’s always been one reason all things Apple sells well – it’s the best product. That’s all.
I don’t know. I talked to 2 retailers on Saturday. Both said they sold out of all 5s and 5c models in less than an hour.
Totally wrong angle MDN.
Here’s the two real reasons :
1 the product
2 knowing what their customers need
A possible third reason why Apple sold so many phones.
For the past few years, the company and its fans have been derided. Others have scored free passes whilst Apple was dragged over hot coals. Nothing was ever good enough, it was no longer innovative, the CEO had to go, even though its products were faster, thinner, better and better selling than ever before. The company and it’s supporters and of course its CEO heard it again and again.
So after years of this, I think Apple fans went out in droves last weekend as a collective “F-you” to the journalists, analysts, other companies, the tech industry as a whole. They lined up, logged in and put down their hard earned cash as a sign of solidarity. Samsung arrived in NY wondering “How could this be? We sell at every price point and every screen size but why are you so…loyal?”
That’s because they’re not customers. They’re fans.
So last weekend wasn’t just about record sales. It was a turnout. A worldwide gathering of the crazy ones once again simply declaring “We’re fans”.
Yea. I agree with this somewhat.