Despite worldwide record, the 6s / 6s Plus still have some catching up to do to reach the sales numbers of the iPhone 6

Oct 5, 2015 09:59 GMT  ·  By

As reported by Digitimes, Apple's new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus sales numbers were 10-15% lower than the figures for the previous iPhone 6 model during the first weekend after the official release in stores.

According to research firm BCN, "Japan-based telecom carrier NTT DoCoMo pointed out that that its iPhone 6s and 6s Plus sales were still strong, but the popularity and number of people that lined up outside stores were both weaker than for their predecessors."

This is somewhat surprising if we take into account that Apple's iPhone is by far the most popular smartphone on the Japanese market, accounting for 60% of the total number of smartphone units sold in the country in 2014.

However, despite the great demand in Japan for Apple's iPhones, this decrease in sales numbers follows a known trend we reported on three days ago, where all iPhone models in the "s" line have slower adoption rates than the previous models.

As reported by Localytics, even though Apple's iPhone 6s does not outperform the older iPhone 6 in terms of adoption rates for the first week of sales, the 6s Plus still manages to score 0.1% above the older iPhone 6 Plus 5.5-incher. This makes it clear that, even though Apple launched a large-screened iPhone quite late in the game, the customers do want more of them each year.

Carriers from Japan still believe in a sales number rebound for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus

Moreover, being traditionally less demanded during the first week of sales is a direct consequence of customers still trying to determine if the upgraded hardware in the "s" line of iPhone models is enough of an incentive to buy a new iPhone.

Despite this, Japanese carriers are still confident that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will still be in great demand despite a somewhat disappointing first weekend.

"A report from Japan-based Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun pointed out that research firms do not start accounting Japan's iPhone sales until October and therefore it is still optimistic about the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus's demand," an NTT DoCoMo representative stated.