Apple Launches Discounted 8GB iPhone 5c in India

MacRumors · May 23, 2014

In line with an earlier rumor, Apple today launched the 8 GB iPhone 5c in India, reports The Times of India. Apple is offering the phone with a Rs. 4,000 discount ($68), bringing the price down to Rs 33,500 ($572). For a limited time, Apple also is including a free case worth Rs 2,000 with every purchase.

Apple released the 8 GB version of the iPhone 5c earlier this year and brought the phone to more than 16 countries outside the US. Apple introduced this low-capacity model as an affordable option that also is compatible with a growing number of developing LTE networks overseas.

Apple has been expanding its presence in India, bringing back the iPhone 4 earlier this year and growing its network of retail stores in the country. According to Canalys's 2013 estimates, India is the third largest smartphone market in the world and growing. Apple is aware of the opportunity, with CEO Tim Cook reporting in Q3 2013 that iPhone sales in the country increased 400 percent year-over year.

The 8GB iPhone 5c sits at the bottom of the iPhone lineup in India, nestled in between the reintroduced 8GB iPhone 4 (Rs. 22,900) and the 16GB iPhone 5c (Rs. 41,900).

Article Link: Apple Launches Discounted 8GB iPhone 5c in India

keterboy · May 23, 2014

500+ USD is a fortune for most of India, i hope they know what they're doing.

diddl14 · May 23, 2014

Sounds like a real bargain for most of India's population.

DevilInDisguise · May 23, 2014

A Rs.4000 discount would be Rs.41900 - 4000 = 37900.

The iphone 5C 16GB is priced at 41900 here.

How did u get a price of 33500?

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diddl14 said:
Sounds like a real bargain for most of India's population.

Bargain? ur must be kidding.. do u know what our economy is like?

DipDog3 · May 23, 2014

DevilInDisguise said:
A Rs.4000 discount would be Rs.41900 - 4000 = 37900.

The iphone 5C 16GB is priced at 41900 here.

How did u get a price of 33500?

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Bargain? ur must be kidding.. do u know what our economy is like?

I'm sure that was a joke.

$572 is still really expensive for anyone but the rich in India. If you have that much money, you would just buy the 5s or wait for the 6.

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The Galaxy S5 lists for Rs 51,500 ($880), but some stores are selling for as little as Rs 40,000 ($683).

Reason077 · May 23, 2014

There's some great deals on these in the UK right now too.

e.g: £19/mo with £99 up front on Three. (Unlimited calls/txts, 500MB data. FREE roaming in 11 countries incl USA. Upgrade to unlimited data for extra £3/month)

Great deal if you don't mind the fact that its only 8GB. Not really a problem if you use Spotify and thus don't need a large iTunes library. Works out almost £200 cheaper than the 16GB model!

NMBob · May 23, 2014

$500 for an 8GB anything is just greedy. That's too bad, but becoming normal.

thedeejay · May 23, 2014

Just came back from India, and let me tell you that there is no way in heck this is affordable by the average population. I don't think this will appeal to the norms even with the introduction of iPhone 5C 8GB because it's quite high. There are some decent Android phones that do the job and probably more for around 15,000 INR. Apple won't succeed with this pricing.

jonnysods · May 23, 2014

What a horrible price.

Ventilatedbrain · May 23, 2014

Fun fact . The 8gb iPhone had 2gb less actual storage than the 16 gb s5

ineetagofurdump · May 23, 2014

Lol not surprised that they would get rid of cheap junk in India

lunarworks · May 23, 2014

With quality phones like the $199 Moto G and the $149 Moto E, Apple won't be able to get away with these prices forever.

Let's hope they reposition the 5C in September.

cdmoore74 · May 23, 2014

Another stupid attempt by Apple. Haven't they learned from the iPhone 4 failure?

zbarvian · May 23, 2014

That makes the 5C the most overpriced smartphone by a long shot.

ChrisA · May 23, 2014

keterboy said:
500+ USD is a fortune for most of India, i hope they know what they're doing.

There are 1,200,000,000 people in India. Lets assume 0.5% of them are rich. That means 6,000,000 potential iPhone customers. They are selling to the half percent who can afford it. If one one in ten of there rich people buy a $500 phone then Apple takes in about $3B. There are SO MANY people there that even if you sell to only 0.05% of them you still make billions.

markiv810 · May 23, 2014

Motorola X is a better option

Anything above 20,000 Rupees for iPhone 5c is really expensive for the Indian consumer, Motorola X is much cheaper than iPhone 5c (only 24000 rupees in cost for 16GB with 2GB RAM, 1.7 GHz Dual Core Krait Processor.

usarioclave · May 23, 2014

markiv810 said:
Anything above 20,000 Rupees for iPhone 5c is really expensive for the Indian consumer, Motorola X is much cheaper than iPhone 5c (only 24000 rupees in cost for 16GB with 2GB RAM, 1.7 GHz Dual Core Krait Processor.

You can go cheap, or you can go for the best. The same cost comparisons occur here, and yet the iPhone still sells.

BC2009 · May 23, 2014

keterboy said:
500+ USD is a fortune for most of India, i hope they know what they're doing.

They are coming down in price so they are going in the right direction. Problem is that they need cheaper manufacturing costs if they are going to discount much lower. Otherwise, the margin on handsets sold in India is going to be much less than those sold everywhere else in the world.

Personally, I think iPhone (and iPad) is never going to be anything but a premium device for the wealthy people in India. Apple would have to introduce a device that sold for under $200 off-contract to capture a large percentage of the Indian population. That device would be sold at nearly the cost of the components. At that point it makes no sense to even bother since there is still marketing costs to consider. I simply don't see Apple introducing an iPhone in the $150 to $200 range.

nutmac · May 23, 2014

DipDog3 said:
I'm sure that was a joke.

$572 is still really expensive for anyone but the rich in India. If you have that much money, you would just buy the 5s or wait for the 6.

Exactly. 5c doesn't appear to be priced for the segment that would want a cheaper iPhone.

And to those complaining how 5c is overpriced, especially when compared to Moto G, let's keep things in perspective. By most account, 5c is a far more capable phone than low-end Android phones. And Motorola is clearly selling G at very minimal margin, which is not how Apple do things (and selling 5c at price closer to G would cannibalize 5s).

I am hoping things will get more interesting with the release of iPhone 6, at which point Apple will likely knock down 5c price by another $100 to $450 in the US (and hopefully similar proportion in India and elsewhere). That puts it much more closer to the likes of Moto X and Nexus 5.

869639 · May 23, 2014

Another sad thing...India's wireless networks suck! 2G is the best available service with 3G only available in major cities --- in comparison its 10x worse than T-Mobile's coverage in US.

For Canadian comparison -- its worse than Wind Mobile's Coverage (but thats because Wind is less than 10 years old) -- The big players in india just never thought long term and stuck to their 2G/EDGE network that too only best is offered by Vodafone and Airtel -- Reliance and all others are hit or miss when it comes to coverage.

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markiv810 said:
Anything above 20,000 Rupees for iPhone 5c is really expensive for the Indian consumer, Motorola X is much cheaper than iPhone 5c (only 24000 rupees in cost for 16GB with 2GB RAM, 1.7 GHz Dual Core Krait Processor.

Thats the thing...you can go for spec sheet that sounds amazing or go for quality...iPhone always brings premium quality for most and this isn't to say that Motorola and others don't make good phones, but they also don't earn as much as Apple does....Money makes people happy so its important that they make a good margin to continue releasing quality products which last for years to come ----- considering the iPhone 4 is over 4 years old now....its still going...We don't see too many other phones in the market that are kicking around still in same condition (functioning wise).

OriginalMacRat · May 23, 2014

nutmac said:
I am hoping things will get more interesting with the release of iPhone 6, at which point Apple will likely knock down 5c price by another $100 to $450 in the US (and hopefully similar proportion in India and elsewhere). That puts it much more closer to the likes of Moto X and Nexus 5.

Funny how people avoid comparing iPhones to the real equivalent Android phones.

HTC Once M8 $699
Samsung Galaxy S5 $599

FriednTested · May 23, 2014

markiv810 said:
Anything above 20,000 Rupees for iPhone 5c is really expensive for the Indian consumer, Motorola X is much cheaper than iPhone 5c (only 24000 rupees in cost for 16GB with 2GB RAM, 1.7 GHz Dual Core Krait Processor.

For you and all the other snobby commentors like you... Please check your facts before vomiting stupid stuff...

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BC2009 said:
They are coming down in price so they are going in the right direction. Problem is that they need cheaper manufacturing costs if they are going to discount much lower. Otherwise, the margin on handsets sold in India is going to be much less than those sold everywhere else in the world.

Personally, I think iPhone (and iPad) is never going to be anything but a premium device for the wealthy people in India. Apple would have to introduce a device that sold for under $200 off-contract to capture a large percentage of the Indian population. That device would be sold at nearly the cost of the components. At that point it makes no sense to even bother since there is still marketing costs to consider. I simply don't see Apple introducing an iPhone in the $150 to $200 range.

The "wealthy" or the people who would buy the iPhone as you put it is more than 15% of the population... Now 15% is still 180,000,000 people... Go Figure...

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Samunlocks.net said:
Another sad thing...India's wireless networks suck! 2G is the best available service with 3G only available in major cities --- in comparison its 10x worse than T-Mobile's coverage in US.

For Canadian comparison -- its worse than Wind Mobile's Coverage (but thats because Wind is less than 10 years old) -- The big players in india just never thought long term and stuck to their 2G/EDGE network that too only best is offered by Vodafone and Airtel -- Reliance and all others are hit or miss when it comes to coverage.

----------

Thats the thing...you can go for spec sheet that sounds amazing or go for quality...iPhone always brings premium quality for most and this isn't to say that Motorola and others don't make good phones, but they also don't earn as much as Apple does....Money makes people happy so its important that they make a good margin to continue releasing quality products which last for years to come ----- considering the iPhone 4 is over 4 years old now....its still going...We don't see too many other phones in the market that are kicking around still in same condition (functioning wise).

It is more than 50% of the country area... Which is more than enough... As approx 50% of the population don't even use 3g phones... Regardless of whether or not they can afford it... The culture here is if you do not need it you don't spend... A little different from the culture of the west where you should have it if it is available just because everyone has it...

afawcett · May 23, 2014

The picture in this article keeps reminding me of the crystals from the legend of zelda

kamalds · May 23, 2014

usarioclave said:
You can go cheap, or you can go for the best. The same cost comparisons occur here, and yet the iPhone still sells.

India has higher number of engineers than US. That is why we put our intelligence in buying better products such as a Lumia or a Moto G / X instead of something that retails to as close as $1000 and feels super fragile

SlCKB0Y · May 23, 2014

Ventilatedbrain said:
Fun fact . The 8gb iPhone had 2gb less actual storage than the 16 gb s5

Fun fact. The 16gb s5 comes with many more apps and can cheaply and easily be expanded with microsd.

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OriginalMacRat said:
Funny how people avoid comparing iPhones to the real equivalent Android phones.

HTC Once M8 $699
Samsung Galaxy S5 $599

And that's a fair comparison because the 18 month old tech in the 5c is equivalent to two brand new flagship Androids?

what are you smoking?

Apple Launches Discounted 8GB iPhone 5c in India

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