Costco to Sell iPhones for $149 in January?

[MacRumors]

Amidst rumors of doom and gloom for the tech market, analyst Trip Chowdhry claims that Apple will start selling iPhones at Costco for $149 starting in January.

The tone of the rest of the report indicates that the tech market is scaling back considerably due to the global economic downturn.

Article Link: Costco to Sell iPhones for $149 in January?

[dubhe]

With a contract or Pre Pay?

[nozebleed]

So would these then be unlocked?

[matthewHUB]

sounds too good to be true. but if it is - great! would they be available from the online store costco.com?

[BLACK MAC]

I doubt they will sell it for that cheap. But anything is possible.

[SFStateStudent]

+1 ^^^ $199 & $299 just like the rest of them...

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

How will they be able to do this? Will they be able to subsidize them some how? I don't see how they will make any money doing this.

[Rybold]

Originally Posted by SFStateStudent

$199 & $299 just like the rest of them...

I agree. The price WILL be the same as the others. Otherwise, other retailers would be crying unfair advantage and there would be lawsuits against Apple.

$199 and $299.

[NeoMayhem]

You can already get a few ATT phones at costco for $50 less then other stores, and get the activation fee waived.

I would not be surprised at all to see a $149 and $244 iPhone at costco with a 2 year contract, and no activation fee. It would be locked of course, just like the ones you get at best buy or any other authorized reseller.

[longofest]

You could feasibly see a difference of $5 or $10 ($194 or $189), but not that much.

[nigrunze]

If they bump it down to $149, it'll probably require a 3 year contract. Now Americans can experience what cell phone plans are like in Canada (and any other country with 3 year contracts and a minimum of $5 for call display or voicemail.

..... On second thought, that's probably not going to happen. What's more likely is that they'll bump the 8GB iPhone to $149 USD, 16GB iPhone to $249 USD and add a new 32GB model at $349 USD. Remember at the beginning of this year the iPhone got bumped to 16GB in around the same timeframe. I'm pretty sure it was in the first week of February, and most of the time when Apple specifies a month that they'll have a product ready, it's usually in the last week.... or the month after.

[Chupa Chupa]

Could be true assuming Apple bumps up the memory at MW to 16 and 32GB and lets Costco sell the old 8GB.

[aneftp]

Very simple:

Apple will reduce the subsidized (2 year contract) 8GB iphone price from $199 to $149.99 in January. The current iphone 3g will have been on sale for 6 months by January so a $50 price reduction for a subsidized iphone sounds right.

[bacaramac]

Originally Posted by nigrunze

If they bump it down to $149, it'll probably require a 3 year contract. Now Americans can experience what cell phone plans are like in Canada (and any other country with 3 year contracts and a minimum of $5 for call display or voicemail.

..... On second thought, that's probably not going to happen. What's more likely is that they'll bump the 8GB iPhone to $149 USD, 16GB iPhone to $249 USD and add a new 32GB model at $349 USD. Remember at the beginning of this year the iPhone got bumped to 16GB in around the same timeframe. I'm pretty sure it was in the first week of February, and most of the time when Apple specifies a month that they'll have a product ready, it's usually in the last week.... or the month after.

I agree with your second statement. Bump memory and offer current two models at $50 less as well as adding a new version. They did say Apple is making more money now that memory is down in cost.

[saving107]

funny thing is that I work inside costco (im not a costco employee, im just a full time vendor who works inside costco) in san jose, ca and I am very good friends with the manager at the Wireless kiosk and I have been checking the warehouse system and he has checked in his system and there have been no signs of an iphone coming soon, so I went ahead a finally bought the 3g again on saturday.

if its going to be like the G1, no one will know until 2-3 weeks before its released, at costco merchandise comes and goes so fast most employees dont know what coming next or dont care anymore.... but it was cool that the kiosk manager had a working G1 2 weeks in advance that google gave him for personal use.

[nigrunze]

Originally Posted by bacaramac

They did say Apple is making more money now that memory is down in cost.

I can't remember the last time that Apple sold something at a loss. Normally, it's Apple who decides the specs for their devices and nobody else. While they may give the iPhone a slight price drop, I don't think it will be anything major.

[puckhead193]

bad move apple. When I think of the iphone i think of it as an exclusive product like a burberry jacket or a lexus/BMW. I think the more people who have it, the less exclusive it becomes. By lowering it will be just another honda or kia.

[Sayer]

These iPhone are subsidized, that is AT&T (and other carriers) pays Apple a fee for each phone sold and on their network.

This is why you have to sign a 1-2 year contract. AT&T gets you locked (to collect subscriber fees for 1-2 years) to justify paying the fee to Apple, and if you opt out early you essentially pay the subsidized fee equivalent to cancel the contract.

If Apple sold unlocked iPhones they'd be the full price e.g. $500-$600.

People bitch and moan, but that is the purpose of a free market capitalist system, sellers find a way to get buyers to spend their money in an acceptable exchange.

Now imagine if Apple sold an iMac for $200 as long as you used the mobileMe internet (full DSL/cable/WiMax) service for two years. That would be awesome.

[lowbatteries]

Originally Posted by puckhead193

bad move apple. When I think of the iphone i think of it as an exclusive product like a burberry jacket or a lexus/BMW. I think the more people who have it, the less exclusive it becomes. By lowering it will be just another honda or kia.

Those products are only exclusive because they are expensive. And they are expensive because they are high quality.

Exclusivity is a side effect of quality, not a requirement. If the iPhone gets less expensive, that's a good thing, as long as quality doesn't suffer.

However, if Apple wants to keep their iPhone hip, they'll keep it out of Costco, Wal-mart, and 7-11.

[Mykbibby]

Originally Posted by puckhead193

bad move apple. When I think of the iphone i think of it as an exclusive product like a burberry jacket or a lexus/BMW. I think the more people who have it, the less exclusive it becomes. By lowering it will be just another honda or kia.

Obviously lowering it to 199 was smart... they outsold RIM and their previous year in a quarter! Any lower will help dramatically.

However, I've been annoyed with the quality of the phone. The old phone was built so much better. I want aluminum again. Add the black thing on the bottom for the antenna, but don't make the whole thing plastic... its a piece of junk.

That being said, its still the best phone in the world. The build quality could be so much better though, especially after seeing the new iPod Nano. I want aluminum laser iPhone!

[citi]

Originally Posted by Rybold

I agree. The price WILL be the same as the others. Otherwise, other retailers would be crying unfair advantage and there would be lawsuits against Apple.

$199 and $299.

uhhh... what other retailers would be suing apple? AT&T? they make money off of the subscription, and in fact would probably make more money if they didn't have to be responsible for the unit. Best Buy? I'm sure they could sell it for the same price as costco but wouldn't want to cut into their own profits.


Costco doesn't care about the iphone...they just want people in the store.

[Chupa Chupa]

Originally Posted by puckhead193

bad move apple. When I think of the iphone i think of it as an exclusive product like a burberry jacket or a lexus/BMW. I think the more people who have it, the less exclusive it becomes. By lowering it will be just another honda or kia.

You think the iPhone is exclusive? Really? Maybe back at the original launch, but they are almost as common as blackberrys now. The iPhone is a monster product for what it does, not because of snob appeal. Actually you could say the same for BMW (drives like no other mass produced car) and Lexus (Inspector Gadget on Wheels). Neither brand is exclusive, except for the flagship model, they are just respected for what they represent. Now Rolls Royce, Lambro, Ferrari, that is exclusive territory. (I say this as a happy BMW and iPhone owner).

[veeco3110]

as I've posted many times, Im a supervisor at costco and I'm posting this at work right now((shhh don't tell the warehouse manager)) but I'm looking forward up until June 09 and nothing is coming up. I mean granted they don't have anything in the system. But the warehouse manager doesn't know of anything, our district manager doesn't know of anything, and the cell phone kiosk manager hasn't heard anything...take it for what it's worth

[veeco3110]

Originally Posted by Chupa Chupa

You think the iPhone is exclusive? Really? Maybe back at the original launch, but they are almost as common as blackberrys now. The iPhone is a monster product for what it does, not because of snob appeal. Actually you could say the same for BMW (drives like no other mass produced car) and Lexus (Inspector Gadget on Wheels). Neither brand is exclusive, except for the flagship model, they are just respected for what they represent. Now Rolls Royce, Lambro, Ferrari, that is exclusive territory. (I say this as a happy BMW and iPhone owner).

It's lambo

[oldwatery]

I just don't see this happening.
What they gonna do....put an AT&T kiosk in every Costco?
Right now the one we have locally is Verizon I think, but for sure not AT&T.
I can believe the price reduction though as I was buying my 16GB the other day I thought about MW2009 and the probable intro of a 32GB at the same price