Apple’s iPhone launch day is here and fans, as usual, are lining up at retail stores to be first adopters of either the new iPhone 5C or 5S.
The Apple Store up the road from Wireless Week’s office opened early at 8 a.m. for the launch, as is the case with most other Apple Store’s around the world. But analysts are mixed on how good the weekend sales for the new iPhones could be. As Barron’s points out, BMO Capital Markets see Apple selling far fewer than the 6 million iPhone 5 units sold during the launch weekend last year. But RBC Capital thinks Apple will easily match that total with this year’s two new models.
The iPhone 5C has been available for pre-order from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and Apple’s website since last week Friday. While Apple stayed mum on 5C pre-order totals, several outlets reported Citi’s Glen Young putting the number at around 2.2 million.
Meanwhile, with the iPhone 5S going on sale today, Apple’s website is already showing expected delivery dates for the gold version pushed out to October while the gray and white models are shipping within 7-10 days.
Without having to brave online or real-world lines, Apple customers this week were able to grab iOS 7, the biggest redesign of Apple’s mobile operating system to date. TechCrunch did the math, compiling numbers from multiple outlets, and found adoption as high as 35 percent in the first day of availability. Advertising network Chitika saw 18.2 percent of the iOS traffic on the websites it monitors coming from iOS 7 devices during the first 24 hours the OS was widely available. Comparatively, the same data for the iOS 6 launch was 14.8 percent.
