Apple CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg BusinessWeek that the company's bet was to "create a great phone, to deliver a great experience, and figure out a way to do it at a lower cost . "
Of course, this “lower cost” is not low enough according to many analysts and the end user. In the US, the iPhone 5C hits the shelves with a retail price of $99 if it comes with a two-year contract. It doesn’t sound bad… But the same phone in markets outside the US will reach $550 without subsidies. This specific price makes it anything but a cheap iPhone and competitive in markets like China.
Photo: Businessinsider
But BusinessWeek 's question seems to contain the essence of the whole issue. The website states that Apple will have to decide whether it wants to be a BMW or a commercial company with mass-market products. Apple with the iPhone 5C seems to have not answered the question, or to put it another way, to be going through an identity crisis . Exactly how Apple thinks when it promotes a "cheap" phone to the Chinese market that will come to the end user at a price of $ 550, is not known to us. One hypothesis is that the Chinese will pay to put the Apple brand name in their pocket, to take it out and be admired by their friends. But if this hypothesis holds up even a little, we will have to say something that the company's fans will not like. Apple has stepped on the bandwagon. A plastic phone with technology from 2012 (the release date of the iPhone 5 ) aimed at markets where employers pay $550 per four-month period to each employee is a utopia. Androids are also sold in the same markets. Of course, Androids are not iPhones .
Cook and Apple in general have repeatedly stated that they do not make cheap products. Whether this bet will succeed is unknown, but history records it. The reasons for creating the “cheap” iPhone are slowly diminishing.
There were reports that Apple wanted to promote the 5C project because it wanted to be competitive in emerging markets… What competitiveness are we talking about exactly?
The company's bet, apart from being competitive in the markets, is to answer the question posed by BusinessWeek, something that will define its identity. Of course, this specific answer carries responsibilities with the path that Jobs has charted. Pioneering is not just a matter of history and, as is well known, the rod is a very dangerous vehicle..
George – iGuRu.gr
