Verizon wasn't shy about announcing that its version of the iPhone had broken the carrier's first day sales record, but outside of that, we haven't heard a peep about how well the VeriPhone's been selling (not officially, anyway). Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, has attempted to give us an insight into the device's sales via his Instapaper iOS app. Arment says that his app's ranking in the App Store is usually pretty stable, although it can spike when there's a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch released or when there are simply a lot of people buying the devices, like around the holidays. When the VeriPhone launched on February 10th, Instapaper's sales held steady, with no spike in sight. This info leads Arment to believe that the most likely scenario is that Verizon sold the majority of its iPhone to existing iOS users, like customers that had an AT&T iPhone but decided to jump ship to VZW for the CDMA model.
It's true that Arment's measurements aren't the same as, say, getting official numbers from Verizon, but they do make sense. He also says that while pre-orders for the VeriPhone were big, the rest of the sales will be more spread out rather than in one big boom like when an all-new iPhone is launched. A lot of consumers aren't willing to buy an iPhone off-contract, so they're content to wait until they've given a subsidy on the handset. Plus, you know, there's probably going to be an iPhone 5 this summer, which I'm sure isn't exactly spurring Verizon iPhone sales along.
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