iPhone stocks disappearing fast, say retailers

iPhone 5s seeing more traction than the 5c

Suyash Chowdhury’s Diwali spending budget just got cut. That’s because this Apple fan queued up to buy the new version of iPhone. “I spent Rs 53,000 for it. This would mean less money for other shopping but I can do without new clothes,” said this 46-year-old corporate lawyer.  He is proud of his new Grey coloured iPhone 5s. 

 

Chowdhury is not alone. TheMobileStore, which claims to have the largest stock of handsets, claims that the iPhone 5s version is all sold out. Himanshu Chakravarthy, the chief executive of TheMobileStore had hoped that the stock would last two days. 

 

An increasing number of enthusiasts are walking in, asking for the Gold coloured version of iPhone 5s. “iPhone 5c is moving slower. The stock for this would last another three days,” said Chakravarthy. He did not disclose any details of the amount of stock that they held or the number of handsets that they sold. California-based tech company Apple strictly does not allow its retailers to disclose sales numbers. 

 

Market sources said that over 2,000 handsets have been sold in total today.

However, the handset is also being sold by telecom operators like Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel. While neither of them disclosed the sales figures, it is known that only as many as 5,000 handsets were given as stock to the operators. 

 

“Of this, only 500 handsets have been sold as of now,” said a telecom operator, who is selling the handset. 

 

Apple is targeting only the ultra-premium segment of data users. The company is looking at subscribers who spend over Rs 2,000 per month in the form of mobile bills. This post-paid market comprises of only around 3.5 million in a subscriber market which has over 700 million subscribers. While Apple as a handset continues to have appeal amongst a select set of uses in the market, a major number of smartphone users prefer the open-source Android platform popularised by manufacturers like South Korea-based Samsung, and local handset makers like Micromax and Karbonn. 

 

“I prefer to buy a high-end Android handset like Samsung S4, rather than any version of the iPhone as the former has more choice for application downloads and they are for free,” said Ashish Jadhav, a smartphone user. 

 

Apple, which has earlier made statements in public on how it does not see India as an important market, is known to be looking at selling 300,000 handsets in the next three months in the country.