It's not about a statement being less than flowery. It's about a statement that is misleading. You say the rest of the article is balanced, but how do you know that?
> It's not about a statement being less than flowery. It's about a statement that is misleading.
It is not misleading in the least to say that the 5C was a disappointment. It did not do a particularly good job of living up to its all-but-stated goal of penetrating the lower-income market in the developing world, namely China[0].
As GP said, you would be hard-pressed to find someone either inside Apple or outside who would seriously make the argument that the 5C was anything other than a disappointment.
[0] Nor did it even do a particularly good job of selling to lower-income households in the US (which wasn't even the goal in the first place, but since OP mentioned the US, let's address that). It's hard to say, but inferring from the movements in market share, it seems the 5C ate into 5S sales more than it converted Android or Windows Phone users.
That's a myth created by the media after they misunderstood comments Tim Cook made on an earnings conference call and ran with it. The 5C was actually very successful. It sold more than its predecessor in that tier (along with the 5s and 4s) and was responsible for bringing lots of new customers to Apple and converting many from Android.
> Speaking to analysts during Apple's Q2 earnings conference call, chief executive Tim Cook stated that 69 percent of iPhone 5c buyers were new to iPhone, while 60 percent had switched from an Android phone. For the cheaper iPhone 4S, the ratios were even higher (although the sales volumes were much smaller): 85 percent were new to iPhone, while 62 percent switched from Android.
> It sold more than its predecessor in that tier (along with the 5s and 4s)
What do you mean "its predecessor in that tier"? The all-but-stated goal of the 5C was to break into a new market that they'd previously been priced out of.
For weeks (if not months) leading up to the release of the iPhone 5C there were news reports of Apple's attempt to break into China by releasing a cheaper iPhone. Sure, these were based on "rumors", but since Apple almost never announces their strategy directly, this is how most of our understanding of Apple's strategy has always worked.
Apple's been able to take some market share from ZTE, but not from any of the other main players (Samsung's market share has increased since the release of the 5C).
(Also, your quotation doesn't actually refute the statement I made earlier. I didn't say that the 5C didn't sell to new iPhone users - I meant that, for those new users, the 5C sold to people who otherwise would have bought a 5S (thus eating into their potential profits). That's neither here nor there, though, since the main issue is how the 5C sold in China, not the US.)
'its all-but-stated goal of penetrating the lower-income market in the developing world'
This is where the fiction lies. You actually don't know what the goal was, but with a statement like this you can manufacture one that hasn't been met.
I think the 5C is part of a strategy that will ultimately allow Apple to address a larger market, but the goal of the 5C was not to cause that to occur immediately, but rather to conservatively introduce a second iPhone without destabilizing the whole product line.
If you consider the number of elements needed to make that happen: new design, new manufacturing, carrier agreements, marketing, etc, the goal here was to establish this second apparatus in a controlled manner. This is why the 5c internals are essentially the same as the 5 - i.e. the engineering element of the strategy is unchanged from before.
The 5c is the beginning point of the strategy, not the end.
The only people who think that the 5c was a disappointment, are those who think slashing prices is a 'strategy'.
Why do you keep using that phrase? You don't get to judge a company's achievement of goals that you have ascribed to it. Or, you can, but to do so is nonsensical.
>As GP said, you would be hard-pressed to find someone either inside Apple or outside who would seriously make the argument that the 5C was anything other than a disappointment.
Nope, that's not what they said. What they said was:
>I don't think many people inside or outside of Apple are arguing that the 5C was a disappointment sales wise.
It is not misleading in the least to say that the 5C was a disappointment. It did not do a particularly good job of living up to its all-but-stated goal of penetrating the lower-income market in the developing world, namely China[0].
As GP said, you would be hard-pressed to find someone either inside Apple or outside who would seriously make the argument that the 5C was anything other than a disappointment.
[0] Nor did it even do a particularly good job of selling to lower-income households in the US (which wasn't even the goal in the first place, but since OP mentioned the US, let's address that). It's hard to say, but inferring from the movements in market share, it seems the 5C ate into 5S sales more than it converted Android or Windows Phone users.