Apple remained silent after its new iPhone 5c went on sale this past Friday, deciding to deviate from years past and keep preorder figures private. The silence, coupled with the fact that sellouts were scarce, led investors to believe demand is lighter than expected and Apple’s share price took a hit as a result. We won’t know any hard numbers unless Apple announces them but according to one industry watcher, iPhone 5c preorders were actually quite impressive.
Citi Research analyst Glen Yeung said Monday night in a note to investors that pre-sales of Apple’s new iPhone 5c likely came in at around 2.2 million units during the phone’s first 24 hours of preorder availability, CNET reported. That figure would mean that 5c preorders topped the 2 million units Apple’s iPhone 5 racked up last year during its first 24 hours of pre-sales.
It also begs the question, why would Apple keep that figure quiet?
Yeung didn’t suggest any answers to that obvious query, but he did estimate that combined global iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c sales through the end of launch weekend will likely total about 7.75 million units, handily topping the 5 million iPhone 5 handsets Apple sold during its opening weekend last year. As for the split, the analyst thinks 5c sales will total 4.5 million units while sales of the more expensive iPhone 5s will reach 3.2 million units.
That iPhone 5s figure seems a bit low, but BGR on Tuesday reported that supply of the iPhone 5s will be severely constrained at launch, which jibes with a number of earlier reports. The result will likely be long lines and a whole bunch of angry iPhone fans, but hopefully Apple’s manufacturing issues will soon be resolved and supply will catch up to demand in the coming weeks.
