Apple brought the new iPhone 5S to the market and one of the features that it came along with it is the TouchID fingerprint scanner. The feature is popular and since mobile security is a hot topic in the world today, but the lower cost iPhone 5C did not come with the feature. The Wall Street Journal reported sales numbers for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C and for the most part they were very good. One thing that was not that good are the sales of the iPhone 5C.
Analysts claim that the lower sales of the iPhone 5C could have been in part because the company did not offer the TouchID feature. Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that the lack of the hardware in the lower cost device was the reason that others were ready to spend $100 more on the higher end model. Cook claimed that the demand “turned out to be different than we thought”, but it did push more consumers to the iPhone 5S based on the numbers. Apple sold more than 51 million iPhones over the last quarter of 2013, which happens to be the first quarter for Apple’s fiscal year.
Cook said that he thought that with “the 5S, people are really intrigued with Touch ID.” He also went on to say that TouchID is “a major feature that has excited people. And I think that associated with the other things that are unique to the 5S, got the 5S to have a significant amount more attention and a higher mix of sales.” Cook is talking about the iPhone 5S and this is just a couple of weeks after there are rumors that Apple could scrap the iPhone 5C project altogether this year.
Even though Apple could get rid of the iPhone 5C this year, the company could still release two different models of the iPhone this year. Both of the rumored models are expected to come to the market with larger displays to compete in the phablet market and take the Galaxy Note 3 on directly. On top of that, because the TouchID is a very popular feature, Cook said that Apple is looking to expand it endeavors into the mobile payment market. There are some mobile payments options on the market, notably the ISIS model used by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.
