Apple iPhone 5C Preorders: Why Apple is Keeping the Numbers a Secret?

Apple is known for being vocal about the running sales of its preorders each time it has a new device but for some reason it decided to keep the numbers a secret for its colorful low-cost iPhone 5C.

The Cupertino-based company unveiled on Sept. 10 its new devices—a low-cost iPhone 5C and the high-end iPhone 5S. It also began accepting preorders or online reservations for the iPhone 5C on Sept. 13 while the iPhone 5S remained to be available only upon official release date.

A trip back to memory lane, during the Apple iPhone 5 preorder in September 2012, the company immediately announced just three days later that they have managed to place two million preorders within 24 hours exceeding the record they have for iPhone 4S which only had one million. iPhone 4 was 600,000 on its first preorder day.

Apple has not released any statement about the status of the iPhone 5C preorders which raises speculations that it is not doing that well. Evidence is the fairly small following it has received from its target market China.

China Unicom, the country’s second largest wireless provider, announced on Sept. 16 that that their online reservations for the new iPhone has already exceeded 100,000—a number too small compared to previous iPhones in the U.S market. China is the largest smartphone market in the world so a 100,000 preorder is not significant enough. It is also lower than the 200,000 reservations it had for iPhone 5 which they received within 48 hours in 2012.

So why is it not attractive enough for the Chinese consumers? EWeek reported that the Chinese buyers were expecting the device to be as much as $500 instead of the $728 retail price Apple offered to the market. U.S analysts commented that Apple needs to cut the price between $300 and $450 to attract its target consumers.

Furthermore, a Chinese survey reported that 90 percent of the market is not interested in getting the iPhone 5C because of it being too pricey.

Apple is set to report its third quarter earnings on October which may finally reveal the numbers for the iPhone 5C.