Monday, July 25, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

Study: 35% of ALL Consumers Will Buy the iPhone 5

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 09:20 AM PDT


The iPhone has long been a product that had more buzz than sales. But with the iPhone 5, Apple may have finally figured out how to get all the people who are talking about iPhones to actually buy one.

Yes, you’re reading that headline correctly.

A new study from Experian shows that 35% of all consumers plan to buy the iPhone 5. Not “all smartphone users,” not “all mobile phone users,” but all consumers. “All consumers” basically encompasses virtually everyone. This is directly from the press release:

“PriceGrabber®, a part of Experian, just released the results of its iPhone 5 survey, revealing that 35 percent of consumers plan to purchase the latest iPhone upon its release. Of these respondents, 51 percent indicated that they will buy the smartphone within the first year of release, 30 percent will purchase it before the end of 2011, 14 percent will buy it within the first month, and 7 percent will buy it within the first week. Conducted from July 1–11, 2011, the survey includes responses from 2,852 U.S. online consumers.”

To be sure, this survey corroborates earlier estimations that Apple would sell 25 million units of the iPhone 5 in the last quarter of 2011 alone. Now, it seems that, even this time next year, the iPhone 5 will be selling at a pace that will make even the robust, longevous sales of the iPhone 4 look paltry. It appears that the delay of the iPhone 5, together with an ever-increasing fever pitch in the iPhone 5 rumor mill, has led to a new level of excitement about the next iPhone.

Analysts also believe that the strategy of debuting iOS 5 and iCloud at the WWDC sans the iPhone 5 could turn out to be a winning strategy: Steve Jobs and crew managed to sell consumers on the notion of an “Apple ecosystem” powered by iOS 5, with the iPhone 5 being the crown jewel of the experience — the true key to unlocking this ecosystem. CNET seconds this notion: “Apple’s appeal seems to be partly rooted in the company’s iOS platform. According to PriceGrabber, 48 percent of respondents said that they prefer iOS to all other mobile operating systems. Just 19 percent said that they would choose Android over all others, while 7 percent of consumers picked Windows Phone.”

Of course, estimations like this only lead to new questions. Dan Resinger at CNET makes a good point: “The only issue is, there isn’t an iPhone 5 for those consumers to buy. And so far, Apple hasn’t made any indication that it will be launching that device.” If the estimations proves to be true, two unintended consequences could spin off of these new stats: Apple could fail to deliver on the iPhone 5 (highly unlikely, but possible) and disappoint more than a third of ALL consumers, or Apple could release an impressive iPhone 5, but have a hard time keeping up with demand, frustrating potential customers.

After all, we’ve already seen this happen with the iPad 2, which only very recently saw sales decline to the point where Apple can now reasonably keep up with demand.

Regardless of these possibilities, one thing seems certain: after seeming as though there were losing ground in the smartphone arena, Apple seems poised to match the dominance of the iPad in the tablet market with its iPhone 5.