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While we don't have exact sales numbers for either model, it is now clear that iPhone 5c was a remarkable success, not just as 2013's second most popular smartphone of the holiday season (after Apple's top of the line iPhone 5s), but also in its intended strategic roles as both an mid-market smartphone and a compelling Android alternative.
Speaking to analysts during Apple's Q2 earnings conference call, chief executive Tim Cook stated that 69 percent of iPhone 5c buyers were new to iPhone, while 60 percent had switched from an Android phone. For the cheaper iPhone 4S, the ratios were even higher (although the sales volumes were much smaller): 85 percent were new to iPhone, while 62 percent switched from Android.
"And so we're incredibly pleased with this," Cook stated.
Of course Cook was pleased! Apple managed to pull off something that had previously seemed completely impossible: it continued to sell premium, luxury class $650 iPhones at prices three times higher than the volume sales of the overall smartphone market, without making significant concessions on either margins and profitability or, more importantly, without giving up valuable market share.
In fact, in the most valuable markets, Apple achieved meaningful (and in some cases incredible) increases in market share. Apple's iPhone achieved 55 percent market share among smartphones inJapan, Cook noted.
The company's corporate controller Luca Maestri drew attention to growth in the very developing markets where analysts had insisted that Apple's iPhone mix was incorrectly priced and configured, stating, "In Greater China, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland and Turkey, iPhone sales grew by strong double-digits year-over-year, and in India and Vietnam sales more than doubled."
Virtually everyone who had offered an opinion about Apple's iPhone mix got everything wrong. Apple not only launched the world's best selling phone with enough innovative features to impress the company's own customers to buy an upgrade, but also managed to convert its "last year" best seller into a lower priced middle tier phone with the ability to win over Android users better than all of the leading Android flagships. Apple was so incredibly successful that it even surprised Apple.
On the other hand, there was no talk from anyone about how many "middle tier" phones Samsung sold, nor even any curiosity about the specific product mix that was driving that "80 percent" ratio of Android phones.
"And so we're incredibly pleased with this," Cook stated.
Of course Cook was pleased! Apple managed to pull off something that had previously seemed completely impossible: it continued to sell premium, luxury class $650 iPhones at prices three times higher than the volume sales of the overall smartphone market, without making significant concessions on either margins and profitability or, more importantly, without giving up valuable market share.
In fact, in the most valuable markets, Apple achieved meaningful (and in some cases incredible) increases in market share. Apple's iPhone achieved 55 percent market share among smartphones inJapan, Cook noted.
The company's corporate controller Luca Maestri drew attention to growth in the very developing markets where analysts had insisted that Apple's iPhone mix was incorrectly priced and configured, stating, "In Greater China, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland and Turkey, iPhone sales grew by strong double-digits year-over-year, and in India and Vietnam sales more than doubled."
Virtually everyone who had offered an opinion about Apple's iPhone mix got everything wrong. Apple not only launched the world's best selling phone with enough innovative features to impress the company's own customers to buy an upgrade, but also managed to convert its "last year" best seller into a lower priced middle tier phone with the ability to win over Android users better than all of the leading Android flagships. Apple was so incredibly successful that it even surprised Apple.
On the other hand, there was no talk from anyone about how many "middle tier" phones Samsung sold, nor even any curiosity about the specific product mix that was driving that "80 percent" ratio of Android phones.
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