Compared to the iPhone 5s, this chart shows the iPhone 5c has bombed in China

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) isn’t going to tell everyone precisely how much of each model it sold in every country, so we need to find an alternative source of data to dig up some insights about its phones. One such good source in China is Umeng, which is like China’s answer to Flurry.

If we look at the the latest report from Umeng – the one my colleague looked at in relation to China’s 700 million smartphones and tablets – we get a good idea of the popularity of the iPhone 5c relative to the 5s. Or, to be more exact, its unpopularity.

As Ben Evans spotted in the report, the slightly cheaper 5c has bombed. This chart, which we’re remade and translated from the Umeng analytics, says it all:

What it shows is that in the fourth month from the launch of the iPhone 5s in China, the model accounted for 12 percent of active iOS devices on Umeng’s app analytics network. The cheaper 5c, in contrast, only accounted for slightly less than two percent. While the 5s has rocketed, the 5c barely took off – and now it’s struggling even to go upwards.

See: The average price of a new Android phone in China? A mere $233

Observed usage doesn’t equate to sales – and there are no absolute numbers for the quantities of each phone models in the country – but this data is an still indictment of Apple’s strategy of remaking the previous year’s model in a plastic wrapping. Chinese consumers weren’t fooled by the marketing, and they aren’t buying the 5c.

It’s not all bad news for Apple in China. Clearly the 5s is being taken up more quickly than the iPhone 5 was in 2012.