Verizon iPhone Sold to Existing iPhone Users

The Verizon iPhone was expected to be a huge and dramatic hit by many analysts, journalists and even AT&T, but so far it doesn’t seem to have the gravity we’d all been anticipating. According to Instapaper founder, Marco Arment, the lack of a huge spike in Verizon iPhone sales might be because of those who’d been wanting the CDMA variant of the device – existing iPhone owners.

Arment’s app, Instapaper, has “almost always between #2 and #5 in the paid News categories on iPhone and iPad,” so he gets to see trends that many others don’t. Among those trends is when the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad get sales spikes. Since his app ranking is consistent, variations and spikes in app sales can largely be attributed to spikes in actual device sales.

Here, Arment lays out a few dates for when his app saw increased sales, and he explains why these dates are particularly significant:

November 11, the day after a major new version that got a lot of press: 1.96 times the average.
December 12, with a major New York Times feature: 2.86 times the average.
December 25, Christmas day: 2.48 times the average, with a gradual decline to the average by around January 6. (My rank was nearly constant during this time.)

Daily sales began to reach average numbers by January 6 and remained that way through February 18 when Arment started putting this data together. While that news would be otherwise inconsequential, the Verizon iPhone became available to existing Verizon customers on February 4, and to the general public on February 10. Arment should have seen at least two spikes in app sales in February – and, indeed, that’s what he’d been hoping – but saw none.

There are a few plausible explanations, according to the developer:

Very few Verizon iPhones have been sold. I don’t think this is likely.
Verizon iPhone owners are buying very few apps relative to other iPhone owners. This also seems unlikely.
Most Verizon iPhones have been sold to existing iPhone or iPod Touch¹ owners, who therefore already own most or all of the apps they want. This seems like the most likely explanation by far.

The last point seems to make the most sense. Either there was a massive and unlikely fluke for Instapaper, or Verizon iPhone buyers were jumping ship from AT&T and the GSM model of the Apple smartphone.

Arment also feels that sales of the CDMA iPhone will be strong, but steady over the course of time. Early termination fees, partial subsidies and Apple’s launch cycle might have deterred many users from buying the Verizon iPhone 4 this month, but that doesn’t exactly mean that it’s going to be a failure.

[Via: Marco Arment]

About The Author

Marc Flores

Marc has been a mobile fanatic for the better part of a decade and has had more devices pass through his hands than he would care to count. Originally from Los Angeles and briefly in San Francisco, Marc now lives in Brooklyn where, unlike Will Park, he longs for simpler times and simpler technology. All the while, he writes about gadgets and wireless technology as he tinkers, hacks and ultimately breaks most of his gadgets in the process. Marc has written about the mobile industry for Boy Genius Report, MobileCrunch, Laptop Magazine and has had his work appear in the Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, CrunchGear and more.

@bstringy

I’d say it was an even combination of #1 and #3. The Verizon iPhone event was anything but. Still no sales figures released, which means what? Sure it beat out the Droid X and was surely expected to, but as for an iphone release, it was a major disappointment. Many believed this would buck the trend of losing ground to Android, but no such luck. However, we have the annual summer release to look forward to.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1324502085 Jordan McMahon

I’m still not even sure that the iPhone 5 will launch on Verizon this summer.
duh

it’s being said that Apple mandates that there be only one iPhone version released at a time, thus iPhone 5 will be released on Verizon & AT&T in the states.

As far as the ViPhone beating out the Droid–remember Verizon only said it set a single day record. The Droid was a whole new platform for Verizon and started slow but did very well over 90 days–doesn’t look like th ViPhone 4 is going to do all that well over the long period–like anyone with a brain couldn’t have seen this coming.
Anonymous

What if the iphone buyers for Verizon were long time Apple enthusiasts that previously owned an iPod touch and/or ipad owners? Or what if they weren’t into instapaper? I have a bunch of apps. Too many to put on my phone at once and, instapaper isn’t one of them. This is a lame comparison. I’m an At&t iphone owner. Who needs to save a web page, if they have unlimited data, as Verizon does, when they can bookmark it and just reopen it later. This is a lame comparison. Out of my many apps that I have, most people that I run across don’t have many or don’t have the same ones. That’s usually my experience. Most Verizon customers aren’t smartphone users. They won’t touch the iphone unless they don’t already have a smartphone. At&t has more smartphone users than anyone, hence the reason that the iPhone sales were so huge. Plus most people interested already jumped ship onto At&t to get it and are probably in contract. The rest probably just won’t spend the extra cash period for the mandatory data plan. Once some people fulfill their current contract this might change. But this will depend on an iphone 5 release this summer. The Verizon iphone 4 just got released at a bad time. Even if people hate At&t how many people are gonna be willing to take a loss on the cost of their iphone, the early termination fee, and buying a new iphone on Verizon in this economy?
sotxbill

What IPhone… most disappoint sales ever. Other than the 1st day preorder, the demand is pretty much in the toilet. Keep waiting.. for what?? Yes we can hear you now, unfortunately for investers who were promised diamonds and given given poop.
Anonymous

The fact that he didn’t see a spike when current Verizon customers got their iPhones early, tells us that simply that Instapaper is NOT a valid indicator of the market.
http://twitter.com/WillieFDiazSF William Diaz ?

Verizon could have done better with a launch actually by doing the following…
1. Lowered the plan cost to be better than and compete directly with AT&T (the only other iPhone carrier)
2. Offered 1 YEAR contracts at $199/$299 or 2 YEAR contracts at $99/$199 for the old iPhone 4
3. Offered those who chose 1 year contracts to upgrade in summer to iPhone 5 for $50 over New Customer $199/$299 price. This would lock them into a full new 2-Year plan without upgrade options till month 22.

These things COULD have been done if Verizon REALLY wanted people to come to their network. Either they simply dont care, or spending money to gain money is a foreign language, or they REALLY got something up their sleeve for iPhone 5 IF … IF …. they even get it this summer.