There were few lines at Verizon and Apple stores yesterday as the carrier's version of the iPhone 4 went on sale, but analysts said that was likely due to the fact that many had purchased the devices during a 3am pre-sale Verizon kicked off last week.
"Yesterday, we visited various Apple and Verizon stores in Manhattan in an effort to gage demand for the new Verizon iPhone 4," Brian White, a senior research analyst with Ticonderoga Securities, wrote in a note to investors. "The key takeaway from our checks was that the lines were short and sometimes there was no line at all."
Though traffic was lower than stores had expected, White said "the pre-order period was the culprit." Verizon sold out during a February 3 pre-order phase that lasted from 3am to 8:10pm. The carrier did not release sales figures, but said it was the "most successful first day sales in the history of the company."
Verizon and Apple again opened online pre-orders on February 9, and Best Buy and Walmart also had the Verizon iPhone in stock on Thursday.
In analyzing Web traffic to Verizon's Web site on February 3, comScore said in a blog post that "millions of people visited verizonwireless.com, with 38 percent visiting the Verizon iPhone pre-order page. Of those visiting the pre-order page, 39 percent actually completed a pre-order transaction – an astounding conversion rate that doesn't account for the number of visitors who tried to complete their order but had technical errors due to Verizon's systems."
White said Ticonderoga estimated that Verizon sold between 700,000 to 1 million iPhone 4's, and Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster also predicted that Verizon could sell 1 million of the devices at launch.
"Given the extra cold weather this season, some consumers may have opted to wait to purchase a Verizon iPhone 4 or will simply order online," White said. "Finally, the Apple stores seemed to be less involved in this process versus the Verizon stores and one worker indicated that some consumers were not even aware that the Verizon iPhone 4 was available at the Apple stores."
Indeed, the AT&T iPhone 4 went on sale in June, and people lined up at various Apple and AT&T stores to get their hands on the device. However, this was a completely new model; Verizon is just selling its version of a phone that has been on the market for more than six months, so some people who nabbed the AT&T iPhone 4 in June might not want to pay to get out of a two-year contract. The AT&T pre-sale was also open to all, resulting in a crashed Web site; Verizon's pre-sale was only available for existing customers.
Going forward, White expected some to venture to Apple and Verizon stores this weekend; others, he said, are likely waiting for the next iteration of the device, the "iPhone 5."