I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.
First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. [...]
[...]Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.
We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.
Steve Jobs
Apple CEO[Apple]
Now this is smart. Earlier adopters pay the actual cost of getting the iphone out and made, and then as it become more of a cash cow, drop the prices to get more customers. But so you don’t piss off the current, you offer them a bone; which may make more sales.
As more iphone where made, the costs went down, it always does. And also as they ramped up production of the ipod touch, they ended up also ramping down the costs even more for the more expensive parts for the iphone. So Apple can afford to cut cost on the phone, and at the same time since they released a lot of new products (also feeling the drop in costs). A number of people who got the iphone and love it, will probably go and buy themselves one of the new toys coming on the market. And all it will really cost Apple is some profit, and they’ll get some good will.
The ones that really do complain about the fact prices dropped don’t know much about manufacturing. The more you do, the more the cost in making the parts drop. And with the ipod touch using the same display, memory and processor (plus casings and other things) they just doubled the number of parts made and lower the cost. Apple doesn’t mind making more money, and it may of for a few weeks as the lower costs where felt. But for a big Christmas push, this was really wise.
Tags: Apple, Finance, Financial, Interesting, News, Technology
