Did The iPhone 5C Actually Flop?

Can Apple’s iPhone 5C actually be termed as a failure? We think not. We may just be looking at this with the wrong perspective.

Is Apple’s worst better than the world’s best?”

Whether due to a polycarbonate body or a heavier shell, or the fact that it was “last year’s iPhone 5 in plastic”, many discounted the iPhone 5C as the runt of the litter.

There is a widespread notion that the iPhone 5C didn’t do all that well in the market. Report upon report states the iPhone 5C didn’t enjoy the same adulation and crowd-flood as the iPhone 5s or even the erstwhile iPhone models did in their heyday.

So why didn’t people flock to buy it, despite its more affordable price point?

This could probably stem from the fact that any Apple user believes and takes joy in that whatever Apple product she buys, she will get the best in terms of quality, luxury and design, albeit at a swollen price. And to the world’s consternation, users don’t consider settling for anything less, even for a lower-cost version of an Apple product! Now that is an mind-blowingly, whoop-from-the-rooftops amazing kind of brand association, if there ever was one!

“Apple doesn’t do cheap” ~ Steve Jobs.

However, at Chip-Monks, its always good to question the premise.

So, did the iPhone 5C really flop?

Let’s look at some numbers.

In the calendar quarter that they were released, the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5C together struck Blackberry, Nokia and Windows Phone off the charts. Samsung too, took a big beating (though they’d never admit it).

Looking at America’s Sales charts in the last quarter of last year, chief vendors such as AT&T and Sprint pegged both iPhone 5s and iPhone 5C at their top two sellers followed by the Samsung Galaxy S4. Verizon featured the iPhone 5s at the top followed by the Galaxy S4 and then the iPhone 5C.

Moving east, the iPhone managed to capture 80% of the premium smartphone market in China and 76% in Japan.

So, the question needs to be refined — Was the iPhone 5C considered a failure, as it did not outsell the iPhone 5s, even though it was a less expensive phone?

Failure no, fact, yes. The iPhone 5s conquered — as it was expected to. The full-blown-Apple experience once again blew opposition to smithereens, including organic competition from the iPhone 5C. And Apple will be very happy with that.

Let’s look at things differently. The statistics by the market pundits, don’t show the entire picture especially the parts that differentiate the sales across market segments. Where Apple targets the high-end user who requires speed and quality; others like Samsung target the user who needs a reasonable price and good handset.

While Apple indeed impresses us each time with the fancy sale charts after releasing any new product (bold graphs showing exponentially increasing curves), Samsung, Windows Phone, Blackberry, HTC etc. have a different playing ground altogether. It is to get a seat at the table in that market, that the iPhone 5C was released. And it did well there. Fairly well.

To summarise, “failure” for iPhone 5c isn’t really a failure, I think it was mainly a let down only to Apple — when stacked against their internal, ambitious expectations rather than actual global sales.

And…. Apple may just be enjoying the publicity and speculation revolving around the perceived failure of the 5C, which inadvertently provides buoyancy instead of what may otherwise have been a slightly tepid public reaction to the largely unchanged iPhone 5 re-launched in a new skin as the iPhone 5s.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.