Once again, Apple has carefully tuned into consumer needs for a spectacular mobile phone experience with its new iPhone 5. Not only was Apple’s launch event breathlessly covered by major media outlets worldwide, but the excitement over the new iPhone 5 also sent consumers into urgent buying modes.
Apple set new sales records with the iPhone 5 pre-orders last week. Apple doubled sales over 2011s iPhone 4 by selling 2 million iPhone 5 phones in the first day of pre-orders last week, according to Computer World. That’s a stunning achievement for the company, and shows that allegiance to iPhone series phones remains at an all-time high.
CNET reported that many online stores‘ servers got hammered with the online traffic generated by Apple’s customers looking for their very own iPhone 5. In some cases, customers will have to wait two weeks or more to receive phones, as Apple’s inventory of phones sold out very quickly.
Why iPhone 5 Outsold Its Competitors?
Well, for one, the iPhone 5 is in a better place time wise to outsell its predecessor. The iPhone 4 was exciting, but that was last year. In 2012, more consumers are seeing the advantages and benefits to being connected online with a mobile experience. And the choice of mobile experience is definitely the iPhone series of phones. It’s not too out of line to see the iPhone 5 becoming a huge sales hit over the upcoming holiday shopping season.
Another reason is the familiarity of the iPhone, even with new models. Unlike the Android operating system, which frequently changes and forces users to rethink how they use their Android, Apple’s iPhone models have stayed the course, more or less, and stayed true to what its users want.
TechCrunch provides solid reasoning about this point. Users expect Apple’s iPhone to be a familiar tool, as users have devoted time and energy to make the iPhones work best for them. Tech Crunch writes: “As with Blackberry’s a few years ago, consumers buy these devices for the familiarity. For better or worse, an iPhone from 4-years ago behaves similarly to one from today. Apple isn’t headed down the same road as RIM, although there are clearly similarities. As RIM was with the BlackBerry, Apple is afraid to disrupt the iPhone experience. Consumers expect the iPhone to look and work a certain way and Apple isn’t likely to fudge with its most important device. That’s partly why the iPhone 5 is just slightly different from the iPhone 4.”
And also like Blackberry’s, Apple’s iPhone’s are becoming the de facto corporate phone model in many businesses. With more entrepreneurs and workplaces geared toward the iPhone mobile experience, there’s a greater tendency to generate projects and deals being done with the help of an iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 attached to a bluetooth headset.
As for the competition, Samsung swung back over the weekend with a forceful ad comparing the Samsung Galaxy SIII phone against the iPhone 5. The ad listed its features against the iPhone’s features, and guess whose feature list was longer? Yep, the Samsung’s Galaxy S III. Whether or not consumers take to the Android platform this fall and winter remains to be seen. For the moment, the iPhone 5 remains at the top of the mobile phone heap.
