CIRP polled 400 people who had activated iPhones between September 20 and October 20. Two-thirds of them had upgraded to the iPhone. Based on questions asked to this sample of 267 U.S. residents, CNet concludes:

“iPhone 5S, 5C lure fewer upgraders, report says”

Which isn’t even what the survey results say, if you can believe a survey with such a small sample size. The survey results say a lower percentage upgraded from the immediately preceding generation of iPhone than last year and a larger percentage upgraded from other iPhones. It’s probably too much to expect CNet to understand the results when CIRP doesn’t understand their own results. They ran with the headline (PDF):

“iPhone Launch Shows Slowing Ecosystem Growth”

There’s no way you can tell that unless you know the total number of people who activated iPhones, something their survey doesn’t purport to show.

I just don’t even know what to do with this stuff.