According to question and answer service, 63336, which surveyed people in the queue, 1297 were waiting outside the Regent Street store when the doors open, nearly twice as many people as were there for the iPhone 4S launch.
‘We honestly felt that Apple queues were starting to shrink with pre-orders taking over and without the allure of Steve Jobs’ cult following. In fact the queue for the iPad 3 was a few hundred smaller than the 4S. Today’s queue, on the other hand, is almost double that of last year’s iPhone 4S,’ said Helen Wright, General Manager of 63336.
According to data collected by 63336, a third of the people were there because they were worried the iPhone 5 would sell out, a quarter wasted to be there for the experience, while another third weren’t sure why they were there.
Almost half of those questioned, 42%, said that they owned an iPad, while 24% said they would buy an iPad mini if Apple made one. A surprisingly high, 38% said they were upgrading from the iPhone 4S. Preference for colour was split very evenly, with 52% favouring black, but, surprisingly given its £699 price tag, the 64GB was by far the most popular of the three capacity options, with 40% of people choosing that model.
Perhaps less surprisingly, those queuing were at the younger end of the demographic range, with 87% aged 39 or under.The most popular network among those at Regent Street was Three, with 22% saying they would choose it. That’s a significant increase from two years ago, when only 4% said they would choose Three.
