iPhone 15 sells record units, doubling its predecessor

Eager customers wait in front of an Apple Store in Myeong-dong, central Seoul, to purchase the iPhone 15 series, on Oct. 13, the day of the product's launch in Korea. [YONHAP]

Apple's iPhone 15 series, which launched last month in Korea, has recorded sales far exceeding those of its predecessors in the domestic market, despite controversies surrounding its performance and cooling.

In the first four weeks of its release, the standard iPhone 15 sold well over double the units that the iPhone 14 sold over the same time period last year, according to market research company Atlas Research & Consulting. In the four weeks that followed its release, the standard iPhone 15 sold 130.6 percent more than the standard iPhone 14 did in the same time period last year.

Total sales figures for the iPhone 15 series over four weeks since its Oct. 13 release were 41.9 percent higher than those that the iPhone 14 series posted over the same time period,

Atlas did not provide specific sales numbers for the iPhone 15 series. But low-priced devices sold relatively better, the firm said, and the increase in demand for the highest-priced iPhone 15 models was on the slow side. Of the full series — which includes the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max — the standard model accounted for a full 30.7 percent in volume.

The Pro segment, which normally accounts for half of all iPhone sales, sold just 14.2 percent more units than last year’s iPhone 14 Pro did, showing the lowest increase rate among 15 series models. The iPhone 15 Pro accounted for 47.9 percent of the series’ total sales volume.

Sales volume for the iPhone Pro Max jumped by 42.3 percent, and 28.2 percent for the iPhone Plus compared to last year’s series release.

The domestic audience’s eager response is a stark contrast against Apple's failure to take off in the Chinese market.

According to German market researcher GfK, early sales figures for the iPhone 15 series after its September China launch were down 6 percent compared to sales figures for the iPhone 14 series over the same time period last year. Hong Kong's Counterpoint Research reports that the iPhone 15 series' sales figures decreased by 4.7 percent in the 17 days since its release, in comparison to the same number of days following last year's iPhone 14 series launch.

Such performance, however, is not entirely unexpected considering the country's strained relationship with the United States, which is driving a nationalistic purchasing environment.

Though concrete numbers have not been published, after the company’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings announcement on Nov. 2 (local time) Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the iPhone 15 was doing better than the iPhone 14 did last September.

“If you look at the iPhone 15 for that period of time and compare it to the iPhone 14 for the same time in the year-ago quarter, the iPhone 15 did better than the iPhone 14,” Cook said.

BY JEONG HYE-JEONG, KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]