Apple’s iPhone 5s most popular in San Francisco, iPhone 5c starts to gain ground across the U.S.

“After extensively reporting early iPhone 5s and 5c adoption data both in the U.S. and globally after the initial 48 and 72 hours of sales, we’re now analyzing preferences for the two phones across 12 major U.S. cities and by carrier,” Bernd Leger reports for Localytics.

“After close to one week of sales, we found that, overall, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco held the largest market share in the U.S. for iPhone 5s and 5c activations. This is to be expected given the size of their populations,” Leger reports. “However the real surprise was that San Francisco came in third. Considering San Francisco is actually the 11th largest market in the U.S., its status as a technology haven also, clearly, translates to a culture of early adoption.”

Localytics: Percent of all active phones by U.S. City, 9/26/2013

 
“We then looked at the distribution of the iPhone 5s and 5c for each of the cities. Again, San Francisco stood out, showing the strongest preference for the 5s over the 5c (85% vs. 15%) among the top 12 major U.S. cities,” Leger reports. “On September 22, the iPhone 5s was outpacing the 5c by a factor of 3.4x. But as of September 26, the 5c has been gaining ground and that ratio has decreased to 2.9x, with the iPhone 5s representing 1.5% and the 5c 0.5% of all iPhones activated in the U.S.”

Localytics: iPhone 5s to iPhone 5c ratio in U.S., 9/26/2013

 
Much more in the full article here.

Related article:
China leads the pack in strong preference for iPhone 5s over 5c – September 24, 2013
Report: iPhone 5s out sold iPhone 5c units 3.7 to 1 globally on launch weekend – September 23, 2013

13 Comments

  1. Once the 5S comes back in stock, we’ll see just how well the 5C actually does. There is certainly a portion of buyers that are selecting the 5C simply because the 5S is not available and they can’t wait until the 5S is again available.

    Given a choice between a 5C 32gb vs a 5S 16gb, both costing the same at $650.00, people will go for the superior 5S.

  2. Simple. There are more homeless and poor people in New York, and gays in San Fransisco who are buying the gayly colored iPhone 5C than 5S. Obama’s income redistribution and gaylord affirmative action in action.

  3. Don’t feed the troll above.

    I expect the 5c to be a slow burner. This is generally an entry level device for customers and sales will grow slowly over the year. So great that 30% or ~3m were sold at launch but the ratio will likely be similar to what was seen with the 5 and 4s/4 last year.

    Don’t discount the value of the 4c business. The component sharing will help Apple reduce costs and the sales will drive revenue over the quiet quarters. Add the novelty value for the new colors and apple have yet another way to disrupt competitors business.

  4. Disagree. The iPod mini was not the cheapest music player on the market but it completely destroyed lower cost products. At around 199 it was not cheap but fitted the needs of a lot of customers. It sucked the profits out of the business and gave apple the control that is needed to grow the iTunes Store.

    Just because apple did not launch an iPhone with zero margins it doesn’t mean that the 5c won’t be successful as the lower cost iPhone for customers. Consider what they are getting for the price: Internet, phone, music, video, and apps. Compare that to the iPod mini of 8 years ago and its value is much greater.

    Sure it will be out of reach for the low end portion of that market but apple will not make products in that until they can make decent profit just as they did when the shuffle was released.

    Every electronic company screws up when it goes for revenue over profit. Only apple has the balls to stick to its guns and maintain a healthy business.

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