Will the iPhone price-point drop in June?
A nationally known financial analyst has predicted that there will be new iPhones models in June, and goes even further, saying that the prices are going to go down on at least some models at the same time.
Katy Huberty, a respected Apple/tech sector analyst with Morgan Stanley, has long believed that the iPhone was overpriced. Her suspicions seem to be borne out by survey after survey with finding that indicate the biggest barriers to iPhone acceptance are, in this order, the price of the hardware, the price of the service plan, and the size of the upfront payment, all consumer money issues. These financial issues are so dear to the hearts of consumers that even the iPhone service problems with wireless carrier AT&T drop down into fifth place by comparison.
Now, Huberty thinks that Apple is going to address those problems. According to an AppleInsider story, Huberty says, “We expect Apple to launch new iPhones in June that offer both a lower total cost of ownership and new functionality, potentially including gesture-based technology.” There is some historical basis for this belief, given that when the flagship 3GS iPhone was introduced last year, the announcement was accompanied by a price drop on the year-old 3G. This time, Huberty feels that there may be an entirely new lower-priced model introduced in June, effectively lowering the price of the entire line.
Certainly, lower-priced phones would help Apple achieve better overall sales in the hotly-contested smartphone marketplace, at least as long as quality does not markedly suffer. We do, after all, live in the Age of Cheap, led by “Buy at Wal-Mart” and “No New Taxes!” As an aside to the iPhone price issue, Huberty sees good things ahead for Apple via the new iPad. She says “We expect Apple to ship its first iPad and announce additional content deals in late March to better than expected demand. We see the iPad targeting the sub-$800 consumer notebook market which equates to 30M annual units just in the US (120M globally).”
Yikes.
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March 5th, 2010
This is a good post about iPhone and I am glad that a new iPhone will come with new functionality.I am veyr much excited for it.If there will be an entirely new lower-priced model introduced then people will get more interest in it.