Earlier this week, Apple fired out a press release declaring a super-sexy opening weekend for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, with a total nine million units sold. Not too shabby for a company that’s supposedly failing to innovate.
The obvious question is: Which is selling more – iPhone 5S or iPhone 5C? Apple is keeping characteristically quiet, while analysts can’t quite make their minds up. Or, as Martin put it: “Who the **** knows what's going on?”
Apple Insider, firstly, relays stats from KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo, who estimates 3.5-4.5 million iPhone 5S units were sold, so the iPhone 5C would logically take us up to the 9 million total with somewhere around 4.5-5.5 million.
Of course, the iPhone 5S in particular was said to be “sold out”, possibly on account of yield issues with the fingerprint scanner.
Kuo says his figures are rooted in production (as opposed to activation). As the Insiders note, he has a pretty good track record with Apple stuff, rightly predicting that the iPhone 5C wouldn’t be a “budget iPhone”.
Meanwhile, focusing on the US, Localytics claims that the iPhone 5S is outselling the iPhone 5C by a ratio of around 3:1, with the latter slowly gaining ground over the course of the week.
The truth is that we may never know how iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C sales break down, since – as evidenced above – there are numerous conflicting methodoligies.