Older iPhones Cutting Into Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone 5 Sales

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will report its first quarter financials in late January, and obviously, iPhone 5 sales will be important. Now it can be said with near-absolute certainty that every analyst under the sun is expecting the iPad Mini to cannibalize the company’s larger tablet models to an extent, but some may have not expected that older “legacy” iPhones would cut into sales of the iPhone 5.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

As originally reported by AllThingsD earlier today, a research report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners shows that “by some metrics, the iPhone 5 underperformed compared to its predecessor, the iPhone 4S.” More specifically, “the iPhone 5 accounted for 68 percent of total iPhone sales during its first month at market — significantly less than the iPhone 4S, which accounted for 90 percent of all iPhone sales during its first month of retail availability.”

In October 2011 after Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone 4S launched, just 7% of smartphone sales were derived from the previous version (iPhone 4), while the remaining 3% was attributed to sales of the iPhone 3GS. This time around, however, the immediate predecessor iPhone 4S is still snatching up 23% of sales, and the iPhone 4 (remarkably) still accounts for 9% of Apple’s smartphone revenue.

While this data doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple’s iPhone 5 is a disappointment, it should tell investors that the company’s Q1 financials don’t depend as heavily on sales of its newest smartphone as most analysts originally thought. As AllThings D’s John Paczkowski put so ardently, “Apple is wisely expanding its addressable market […] [b]ut those lower-priced models will inevitably grow their share […] that might limit not only the number of full-priced iPhones Apple can sell, but revenue and profits, too.”

Interestingly, this report comes on the same day that Canaccord Genuity (via CNET) boosted its first quarter iPhone sales estimate by close to 5%, as the investment bank now expects Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to sell 47.5 million of the devices by the end of the period. In essence, this may mean that although the tech giant’s ‘smartphone pie’ is becoming more diversified, it is still growing, which is most important from an investment standpoint. It’s worth noting that in the first quarter of 2012, Apple sold 37 million iPhones in total.

For those readers who are long AAPL: does this data change your opinion of the Cupertino-based company, or is it only more good news on the back of a potential special dividend that shareholders may see by Christmastime? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.