Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) fans camped out in front of some of the company’s flagship stores, sometimes for days last week, for the chance to be one of the first people to get their hands on a new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. The scenes have now become synonymous with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and their rabid fanbase, but as Cory Johnson said on Bloomberg, the lines are pure marketing to convince everyone who wasn’t in them that they should’ve been.
“What you’re looking at is a marketing event, right? There’s Tim Cook out in front of the TV cameras showing how excited people are to get his product. If they didn’t want to have lines there, they wouldn’t. Look, there aren’t UPS trucks backed around the corner, there aren’t ships stacked up in the San Francisco Bay trying to figure out just how to measure demand. They’ve measured at every level, including outside the store. They want those lines, this is a marketing gimmick when you see those lines out there,” Johnson said.
There is also another element to the lines that has become increasingly reported on recently; they are not filled to the brim with adoring Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) fans who can’t wait to get their hands on the newest devices, as may have been truer in the early years, and as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) would surely love us to believe.
As CNET reported, while there were a smattering of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) devotees there, the 1,500 strong line outside Manhattan’s Apple Store on Fifth Avenue was mostly comprised of people planning to resell the devices. The potential to do so is even greater with this launch, given the potentially lengthy launch delays in China, which leaves the world’s largest smartphone market as black market buyers for the time being.
The iPhone launches have also become events in their own right, which brings out many people there simply for the experience of it, rather than a deep desire to get the smartphone. Then there are those who simply want to have it first as a form of social status.
So while the lines are impressive, and formed outside many Apple Stores the world over, they are comprised of people with a vast array of motives, which doesn’t always include a love of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) or their products.
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