Verizon said the iPhone broke its record for the most phones sold in a 24-hour period, there’s been a marketing blitzkrieg, and analysts have praised the launch as a sort of second coming of Christ. But in reality, when the dust has all settled down, it hasn’t been that impressive.
Boy Genius Report has cited a confidential source to say that Verizon iPhone sales to date have been below analyst expectations and failed to meet the level that Verizon itself was predicting.”
In the report, BGR noted a small sampling of iPhone sales at Verizon stores over the past week and compared that to sales at AT&T stores over the same period. At the samples store locations, Verizon iPhones definitively outsold AT&T iPhones, but not at the rate some might have expected. Each day’s sales showed between 15% and 35% higher numbers for Verizon.
If you had believed the hype, a margin of at least 100% would have been the expectation.
The source in question said 14% of first-week Verizon iPhone buyers were consumers whose last phone was an AT&T iPhone. That is substantial. It takes a lot to make a customer not only jump over to another carrier but also pay more money for the same phone they already had. The bigger story is that 25% of Verizon iPhone customers were switching over from Android. This at a time when Android has leapfrogged over iOS to become the most popular mobile OS.
Total Verizon iPhone pre-order sales were reported to be around 550,000. That was also below expectations, but certainly a high enough number to make whatever investment Verizon made for the device worth it. It just might not have been as worth it as the company wanted.
The real test will be when an actual new iPhone comes out for Verizon. It’s a tough comparison here because people who really really wanted an iPhone 4 already bought one from AT&T and are locked into a contract there.
