IntoMobile

Breaking news, information, and analysis on the latest mobile phones and mobile technology

Open NavigationOpen Search

Did the Verizon iPhone 4 fall short of the hype?

by - 15 Comments

The anticipation had been building for years and the hype reached an all-time high when it became official, but did the Verizon iPhone 4 fail to meet sales expectations? We knew that pre-order sales were impressive and that Verizon set a new first-day sales record. Figures from the pre-orders are rumored to be just over half a million. But what about brick and mortar purchases from the carrier and Apple?

It’s hard to say, actually. BGR is reporting that sales were very paltry after receiving sales data from five Apple retail store locations – two of which are apparently “very, very prominent.” Here are the figures:

  • Thursday: Verizon = 909, AT&T = 539
  • Friday: Verizon = 916, AT&T = 680
  • Saturday: Verizon = 660, AT&T = 471
  • Sunday: Verizon = 796, AT&T = 701
  • Monday: Verizon = 711, AT&T = 618
With five total stores combined – hardly a large enough sample to draw anything meaningful or conclusive – it looks like Verizon iPhone 4 sales mildly outpaced AT&T units.
Can anyone really be surprised?
A good chunk of orders came in the form of online pre-orders the week before from existing Verizon customers. The following week, just a day before official launch, pre-orders became available to the general public. Perhaps all of these factors contribute to the lack of in-store sales. Here’s a quick snippet of the CDMA iPhone 4 variant demographic:
30% of people buying Verizon iPhones were Android users, just over 25% of people buying iPhone 4 were BlackBerry users, and only 14% of people buying the Verizon iPhone were AT&T iPhone owners. The remaining percent didn’t want to say, didn’t have a smartphone, or didn’t have a phone prior to making their iPhone 4 purchases last week.

When the iPhone 4 was announced for Big Red, many current customers wanting to jump on the device were advised not to: Apple is going to release a new iPhone this summer, and it seemed unreasonable to buy a phone model that is already eight months old. This fact alone might have deterred enough potential buyers from jumping the gun.

For now, the safest bet is to consider these stats and figures interesting, but definitely not enough to claim that it’s an instant failure.

[Via: BGR]

Back to top ▴