http://9to5mac.com/2012/12/14/walmart-to-offer-iphone-5-for-127-4s-for-47-and-ipad-3-for-399/
This is unbelievable that the price on the phone is dropping so quickly. This has never happened before, especially during the holiday season. I guess those low sales numbers are true.
Quite a drastic switch here. You went from:
“Some of our Chinese sources do not expect the iPhone 5 to do as well as the iPhone 4S,” Millunovich wrote.
To
those low sales numbers are true
Also, keep something else in mind: Apple has barely lowered price for the iPhone 4S ($0 to $40 dollars, depending on country) and introduced the iPhone 5 with a higher price in lots and lots of countries.
For example, in Europe there are lots of countries where the iPhone 4S launched (without a plan) for around $790. The iPhone 5, however, launched for around $920 dollar. That's a $130 price increase!
We're talking here about Apple's own pricing.
And on almost every carrier (so with a plan), the iPhone 4S has stayed the same in price while the iPhone 5 is at least $130 (€100) more expensive.
Normally, you'd expect that the iPhone 5 would launch for the same price as the iPhone 4S, while the iPhone 4S would drop in price.
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Just to give you an idea how such a price increase would like in the US. Currently, it looks like this (subsidized pricing):
$199 - iPhone 5 16 GB
$299 - iPhone 5 32 GB
$399 - iPhone 5 64 GB
If you folks in the US had to deal with the same price increase, it would look something like this (subsidized pricing):
$329 - iPhone 5 16 GB
$459 - iPhone 5 32 GB
$619 - iPhone 5 64 GB
The 64 GB model was raised even more in price.
So, let's assume that your statement (iPhone 5 sales are lower than iPhone 4S), is actually correct. It doesn't really matter for Apple. They earn about as much as on an iPhone 4S as they did before, and since the iPhone 5's price is higher, a lower sales number might still mean they earn more.