"Does this make the US an 'emerging market'?"
A significant chunk* of the US population, yes.
*46.5 million: http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/17/news/economy/poverty-income/
The latest sales data on Apple's iPhone 5c shows that US buyers are coming round to the cheaper handset, but the rest of the world is still giving it the cold shoulder and choosing the more expensive 5s model. Market analysts Localytics has been tracking activations of the two handsets since their launch and the latest data …
Well said. Also we can expect the sales ratio to change in any case, because this is from the launch period where the 5s has always been bound to perform relatively stronger than the 5c. The 5c will make gains in the holiday period when there are more non-selfie purchasers. The 5c is in any case already selling proportionately more than the 4s did compare to the 5. In absolute terms both the 5s and 5c are selling far more than their counterparts from last year. Since the objective of Apple appears to have been to stay high-end and increase margin, it's already looking like an all round successful strategy.
Apple is wildly successful, but there are some marketing disasters in its history. The Apple 2GS, the Apple 3, the original portable Mac, possibly the Lisa, and the Newton, to name a few disappointments.
Most people I know buy their iPhone on a plan. The cost difference between the 5S and the 5C is little enough, but spread over the life time of the plan, it becomes trivial. I haven’t yet worked out why you would even consider a 5C … ?
"the 5c was billed as a cheaper handset for emerging markets"
It may be the fact that it is cheap(er) but where exactly did Apple say that? Sure everyone else said the C was for China or Cheap etc. - but did Apple actually ever say it was specifically cheap / designed for emerging markets - think it was more that it could hit a $99 on-contract price point in the US?