The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus helped Apple achieve yet another record-breaking opening weekend for its new iPhones, but a new report suggests adoption heavily favors one phone over the other.
Based on ad impressions generated by the two newest iDevices over the weekend, Chitika found the adoption rate for the iPhone 6 was 1.5%, compared to the 0.2% adoption rate for the iPhone 6 Plus.
That means consumers activated an iPhone 6 roughly seven times more than the iPhone 6 Plus. Considering how activations correlate with sales, this might mean the iPhone 6 is significantly more popular than the larger iPhone 6 Plus.
While the iPhone 6 was expected to be more popular than the 6 Plus, there are a few contributing factors that may explain the gap in activations between the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
The iPhone 6 Plus could be considered a “niche” product, since its 5.5-inch screen makes it more of a tablet-phone hybrid — a “phablet” — as opposed to a true phone.
But more importantly, there were significantly fewer available units of the iPhone 6 Plus over the weekend as a result of the poor yield rates for the larger display. And as a result, stores had "extremely limited quantities" of the iPhone 6 Plus available, and couldn't keep up with demand. Several Apple Stores didn't have any at all. Last week, the Wall Street Journal highlighted this issue, mentioning how the “output rate of [the] 5.5-inch [iPhone 6] is still only around 50%-60%, which means display makers have to scrap almost half of the substandard output.”
In the grander scope of Apple products, both new iPhone 6 models lagged behind the adoption rates for the iPhone 5, which was released in 2012. Like this year’s models, Apple advertised the iPhone 5 as the first iPhone with a bigger display. That screen measured 4 inches. The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays, respectively.
Though the iPhone 6 trails the iPhone 5 in terms of adoption, Chitika still calls the latest public release “a notable achievement.”
“For some perspective, it took North American Samsung Galaxy S5 users over a week to generate a 1.5% share of Samsung smartphone Web traffic,” Chitika said.
You can check out the full Chitika report here.
SEE ALSO: 24 Hours With The iPhone 6
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