The iPhone At $199 Bubble Gets A Prick
The dream of an iPhone at $199 seemed too good to last, and so it ends. According to Reuters, U.S. consumers who want the new iPhone but cannot or do not want to sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T Inc will eventually be able to buy it for an extra $400.
Those who do buy it with a 2-year AT&T contract, would still get it at $199 for the model with 8 gigabytes of storage, and $299 for the 16 gigabyte version.
Estimates had put the cost of manufacturing the $199 model at about $173. However the profit to Apple would have been much more than the difference of $26 given that AT&T was expected to be subsidizing the cost, by as much as $300 to $350.
The $199 iPhone had raised a number of conjectures regarding the revenue model - among them, one which was built around a web oriented service which could be provided at a price. While these models may still hold good, Apple doesn’t seem to be taking too much of a chance.
I’ll wait for the Android.
Filed under: Gadgets & Gizmos, News