Rumor: Apple to reintroduce 8GB iPhone 4 to curb flagging India sales
With the smartphone race heating up in emerging markets keen on low-priced handsets, Apple is supposedly poised to resurrect the 8GB iPhone 4 exclusively for Indian buyers.
Citing unnamed sources at four of Apple's top trade partners in the region, The Economic Times reports the company will soon start sales of the 8GB iPhone 4 in its push for marketshare.
The publication further claims the India-only iPhone 4 will be priced at roughly 15,000 rupees, or $243, after factoring in buybacks and equated monthly installment (EMI) plans. This would represent a savings of 11,500 rupees, or $187, compared to the unit's original retail price from three years ago.
One issue with the rumored move is iPhone 4 supply. With the introduction of the iPhone 5s and 5c in September, Apple halted iPhone 4 production and moved the 4S into the legacy handset's entry-level sales slot. According to sources, the company may seek iPhone 4 handsets from unsold inventory around the world, though such a move would be a huge logistical undertaking.
The idea of offering low-cost solutions to get iPhones into the hands of Indian customers is not new, however. Apple and rival smartphone manufacturer Samsung locked horns in a price war last year that saw both companies hand out deep discounts to woo potential buyers.
A key Apple strategy has been EMI schemes that dull the brunt of per-handset cost by spreading payments out over multiple months. In early 2013, market research firm IDC found iPhone sales rose 400 percent over a three-month period following the institution of such plans.
No official word has been given on the rumored iPhone 4 reintroduction, but one source claims Apple's main Indian distributors, Redington and Ingram Micro, could start sales as early as next week.
Citing unnamed sources at four of Apple's top trade partners in the region, The Economic Times reports the company will soon start sales of the 8GB iPhone 4 in its push for marketshare.
The publication further claims the India-only iPhone 4 will be priced at roughly 15,000 rupees, or $243, after factoring in buybacks and equated monthly installment (EMI) plans. This would represent a savings of 11,500 rupees, or $187, compared to the unit's original retail price from three years ago.
One issue with the rumored move is iPhone 4 supply. With the introduction of the iPhone 5s and 5c in September, Apple halted iPhone 4 production and moved the 4S into the legacy handset's entry-level sales slot. According to sources, the company may seek iPhone 4 handsets from unsold inventory around the world, though such a move would be a huge logistical undertaking.
The idea of offering low-cost solutions to get iPhones into the hands of Indian customers is not new, however. Apple and rival smartphone manufacturer Samsung locked horns in a price war last year that saw both companies hand out deep discounts to woo potential buyers.
A key Apple strategy has been EMI schemes that dull the brunt of per-handset cost by spreading payments out over multiple months. In early 2013, market research firm IDC found iPhone sales rose 400 percent over a three-month period following the institution of such plans.
No official word has been given on the rumored iPhone 4 reintroduction, but one source claims Apple's main Indian distributors, Redington and Ingram Micro, could start sales as early as next week.
Comments
Sound advice. Now, that being said... let them buy what they want with their money... even if they can barely afford it.
The iPhone 4 is sill a darn fine phone.
They don't, but they do chase profits.
With iOS 7 its a 7.4GB iPhone no?
I'd be surprised actually if this is true. 16GB is minimum in my opinion with all the features available in iOS7.
iOS 7 is such a feature rich operating system that people will take advantage of all its features.
Correct, which was precisely my point. Apple doesn't worship at the "Church of Market Share", they preach from the pulpit of the "Church of Profit Share". If it makes sense from a profit standpoint then they'll release it but the idea that Apple will rerelease the 4 just to chase market share,as this article implies they will, is bupkis.
WOT:
IMHO, Apple should reintroduce Rosetta under Mavericks -- and allow older Intel Macs and apps to run on Mavericks.
Yet another rumor of Apple chasing marketshare with low-priced models. Yeah, those always turn out to be true...
If true they'd better put a lot more time into making iOS7 run well on an iP4.
It's reported that iOS 7.1 has greatly improved performance on the iPhone 4.
Curb lagging, not flagging, like the other sites reporting this?
Crippling a product in the hope of gaining some marketshare by removing a 6$ piece of hardware, instead of just lowering the margin of the 16GB version by a few percent? If that?
Sounds like a stupid move.
If money is so tight that you can afford a 4 but not a 4S or 5C, then maybe you shouldn't be buying expensive gadgets in the first place, but trying to build up some savings/investments.
Or they could buy a cheaper device ( like the 4) were that available?
The iPhone 4 is the lowest model of iPhone that will run iOS7, and I have heard a handful of comments that it doesn't run it very well. Which, shouldn't be surprising since it has the, now geriatric, A4 processor in it.
So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, it means that Apple is now selling a phone with an A4 processor, a phone and two iPad models with A5 processors, a phone model with an A6 processor, and a phone model and two iPad models with the A7. This is what they are selling right now today.
My concern is that Apple is painting themselves into a corner where support is concerned. Android is often derided because of how badly their product is supported with updates, while Apple is often lauded for the same exact thing. This trend of Apple's though where it continues to sell hardware with a, closing on, four year old processor though is endangering that. As I see it Apple is either going to have to start crippling their updates so that it can run on half-decade old hardware, which the iPhone 4 will be by the time iOS8 comes out, or they are going to join Android in not providing updates for phones that are less than a year old.
This also causes an issue for their ecosystem. It was somewhat acceptable for developers to stop supporting hardware when they could look at it and say, Apple quit making that three years ago, so I am not going to worry about supporting it. They can no longer do that. So, now they have to try and write software that runs well on hardware that is around an order of magnitude of difference in performance. That leads to compromises for the developers as well.
It wasn't that big of a deal when Apple would keep last year's model around and sell at a discount, but that trend is stretching way too far now. They are setting themselves up for failure. They are setting themselves up to become just like Android, with increased fragmentation leading to more work for developers, and decreasing support lifetimes.
This trend concerned me when Apple maintained sales of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S last refresh cycle. And it seems to old be getting worse.