Verizon Communications Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said Apple Inc’s iPhone 5C “undersold expectations” in the third quarter, while its pricier iPhone 5S was in short supply.<\/p>\n
The “5C is in plenty supply” and “if you generally talk to each of the carriers I think they’ll tell you the same thing,” Shammo told Reuters in an interview Thursday after the company reported its third-quarter earnings.<\/p>\n
Apple, which has its phones made by contract manufacturers overseas, is cutting production orders for the cheaper plastic-backed iPhone 5C just a month after its launch at the same time as the iPhone 5S, a source familiar with its supply chain told Reuters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The production cutback was seen by analysts as a rare misstep for Apple, which typically only launches one phone at a time and tends to see massive demand for its devices, particularly during the quarter of their launch.<\/p>\n
Consumer reception to the iPhone 5S appeared to have been much stronger, at least at Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile operator.<\/p>\n
Verizon’s Shammo said scarcity of the iPhone 5S was a “significant issue” for Verizon Wireless, which missed Wall Street’s third-quarter expectations for net subscriber additions as a result.<\/p>\n
Shammo said iPhone 5S customers who were still waiting to receive their phones would be reflected in its numbers in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
But he declined to say how much of an overall effect the shortage of the iPhone 5S had on the company’s third-quarter figures.<\/p>\n
About 51 percent of Verizon’s smartphone activations in the quarter were for iPhone customers.<\/p>\n
“What we don’t know is how many customers would have come that didn’t because they knew there was a shortage,” he said.<\/p>\n
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