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Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

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Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#171

Post by Toucan »

twoodfin wrote: post #103
joosters wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're missing an important point: If you own your phone you can get much cheaper 'SIM only' deals with the mobile carriers, meaning that over your 1-2 year contract, you'll pay far less. Getting a new phone as part of a 'subsidised' contract is effectively borrowing money to buy a phone. Your loan repayments are the monthly fee. If you have the cash, buying the phone up-front is almost always cheaper.

Not the biggest U.S. mobile carriers. AT&T and Verizon have awful BYOD plans, as I understand it. I'd be thrilled to find out I could do better than my grandfathered AT&T unlimited plan (two phones, 5GB/each before throttled, $120/mo.), but keep their network.

That seems bizarre in the UK. I pay $24/mo and get truly unlimited data, with tethering included, as well as 2000 minutes and 5000 texts (and receiving doesn't come out of your allowance in the UK, the caller pays that fee).

It's absolutely cheaper to buy devices outright here.

Example of Three's One Plan for a 32GB 5s (£):

  24 mo contract
  Device        99
  Plan          46
  24 mo total = 1203
  
  12 month contract + BYOD
  Device        629
  Plan          15
  24 mo total = 989

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#172

Post by bane »

jasonpbecker wrote: post #163
bane wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> – At the Apple store I was at, Apple staff greeted people entering the queue, asked them what they intended to purchase and gave them a card (reservation) Didn't do that at either of the two Apple stores I'm aware of (there are 5 in my area), or the three AT&T stores my friends went to. > – You overheard a conversation in another company? Good ears. Extra credit for "she". Grownup companies sometimes do things toge…

Minimally, the first point is wrong. Official Apple Retail stores all do this the same way. Reservation cards were provided. It's possible that the person while in line was informed they didn't have the color they wanted and left, but highly, highly unlikely (unless they entered later in the day) that they made it into the store and had to walk out. FWIW, I did see a few people leave because the color they wanted was…

You're probably right about the apple brand stores. My personal network didn't relay it that way though. Time will tell if these are sustainable sales figures. They are certainly impressive no matter what. But with a year between phones, I don't think a weekend hit sales model is the best way to do things.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#173

Post by Shivetya »

swombat wrote: post #144
panacea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 'if I was an oracle' wish would be two-fold: I realise 5S supply would be very, very constrained initially... so how well did introducing the 5C unconstrained at launch work? I think the 'champagne' phone would have sold out in the launch weekend, regardless of supply. Is Apple playing this out? (yes). Every customer lining up, or entering stores are dropping almost a grand. You want to keep some top tier 64gb 'sp…

http://qz.com/127294/what-apple-wont-tell-you-the-iphone-5s-... This article is claiming that most of the phones sold are 5S's, actually... which would mean the 5C is making a moderate difference to that number... just enough to bump from 7 million to 9 million, perhaps!

I wonder if people are associating the color options/not metal on the C as making it more teen/younger set oriented? Or just cheaper overall? Quite a few people still find status in the phone they carry.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#174

Post by ryanobjc »

bane wrote: post #114
bilbo0s wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow... were there really that many people out buying iPhones this weekend? How does Apple keep doing that?

What's more interesting is why do people do that just with Apple phones? Samsung seems to get their phones out and about without the same kind of theater and is matching Apple sale for sale these days. It's like people waiting in line to see the latest Star Wars film, but a crappy movie about Blue Forest Indians riding Dragons outsells it.

I was interviewed at the launch of the 5S, the interviewer noted that Samsung runs commercials making fun of people waiting in line for the latest Apple whatever. I noted that Samsung WISHED they had people waiting in line for their products.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#175

Post by ryanobjc »

nicky0 wrote: post #169
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Apple's existing precedent to 'revolutionize' phones to the average consumer, I'd consider all the devices in the 5 generation to be iterative.

Let's look at that. 2007: iPhone. 2008: iPhone 3G. Same phone but with 3G. 2009: iPhone 3GS. Same as 3G but a bit faster. 2010: iPhone 4. New case, retina display, faster etc. 2011: iPhone 4S. Faster, better camera and Siri. 2012: iPhone 5. Faster, new case, bigger screen. 2013: iPhone 4s. Faster, Touch ID, better camera. It's hard to say any of those releases were revolutionary except the original iPhone. All since…

yes, incremental innovation is still innovation.

The fetishization of "big bang innovation" is really bizzare. Especially considering most of HN's startups are not really big bang innovation.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#176

Post by baddox »

swombat wrote: post #45

> Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend, Topping 5M For iPhone 5 Last Year Not a fair comparison, given that 5S + 5C is two models. It would be fairer to compare it to the sales of the 5 + 4S last year - which were probably not 9 million, but certainly more than 5 million.

It depends what you mean by "fair." One could just as easily argue that it's not fair to compare last year's 5 + 4s sales to this year's 5s + 5c sales, since this the latter is two brand new models.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#177

Post by baddox »

bilbo0s wrote: post #93
bane wrote: post #84

So I had a few separate experiences with this over the weekend: 1) A friend stood in line for a few hours, got to the front, found out they didn't have the color he wanted and left. 2) A colleague in another company got one and she immediately remarked, "it looks just like Android!". 3) A neighbor returned theirs because they couldn't read all the low contrast stuff on the tiny screen. 4) Another neighbor has kept th…

Wow... were there really that many people out buying iPhones this weekend? How does Apple keep doing that?

Looks like around 9 million, if you assume 1 phone per person. One way Apple does it is by having good marketing, but I think the more important way they do it is by having consistently excellent consumer satisfaction ratings for their mobile products.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#179

Post by yalogin »

adamlett wrote: post #135
yalogin wrote: post #20

Nothing moves the stock like a successful product. I am glad they did not bow to market pressure and announce more dividends or stock buybacks. Stock buybacks are just dead money. They should instead use that money on their business and not to satisfy investors over the short term.

> Stock buybacks are just dead money That is an oversimplification. Apple has more money than it could possibly hope to reinvest in its core business. When that is the case, and when the stock is undervalued as is the case with Apple, stock buybacks are a great use of a company's cash.

The point behind stock buyback is simply to assert some confidence in the stock. Which means the market does not have confidence in it in the first place and probably has negative momentum. Most cases I have seen the market is correct. So even if the stock is bought back the increase in the price will be temporary as the negative momentum will surely vaporize the stock increase. It does not help anybody but investors trying to make a profit in the short term. I have not seen a single stock buyback work. I would rather they throw money at anything but this.

Re: Apple’s iPhone 5s And iPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend

#180

Post by ZeroGravitas »

demallien wrote: post #155
swombat wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes the 9 million figure a whole lot less impressive. From 7+ million to 9 million... but it's not that unthinkable that there could have been 2 million iPhone 4S's sold when the iPhone 5 launched, so that it could even be a step down from the previous year.

Apple doesn't break down numbers to the device level. 5M sold last year was 5m combined iPhone sales (all models). So this really is an apples to apples comparison...

That's what I thought too, based on something I read recently, but check the source:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/09/24iPhone-5-First-Wee...

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