“According to a study from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, 64 percent of all iPhone buyers in the last days of September chose the iPhone 5s. Only 27 percent went for the 5c, which many analysts (including myself) have said is too expensive to play the role of a ‘low-cost iPhone,'” Sascha Segan reports for PC Magazine. “That has led CNBC, for one, to go with the hysterically false headline ‘Nobody seems to want Apple’s iPhone 5c.'”
“But the 5c is performing comparably with iPhones in its price bracket over the past two years,” Segan reports. “It’s obvious that when a new iPhone comes out, most iPhone buyers want the fancy one. The iPhone is a luxury item, and $100 doesn’t make enough of a difference to drive most people to the cheaper model. The 5c is priced just like previous models in this cycle were.”
“Later in the purchase cycle, more sales may shift to the 5c. A less-expensive, non-flagship product is for later adopters, not the day-one buyers,” Segan reports. “An estimate of 11.4 million iPhone 5c sales in a quarter is no mean feat, and according to analysts at Cannacord Genuity, this basically recycled phone is outselling Samsung’s Galaxy S4 at AT&T and Sprint, a feat the older iPhone 5 couldn’t accomplish over the previous few months. Apple probably couldn’t have pulled that off without the new name and look… There’s also no proof so far that the mythically disruptive, low-cost iPhone would actually make money for Apple. Never confuse profit share with market share. Apple makes high-end, high-margin products.”
Read more in the full article here.
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