iPhone 5s Reportedly Outselling iPhone 5c Two-to-One Since Launch

[terzinator]

Let's speculate on the 4S: they need an iOS 'ecosystem' accessing phone the carriers can provide for free to subscribers.

But one might argue that could have been the 5. (Or the 5C, now.)

Keeping the 4S makes the 5C more expensive, and perhaps out of reach for many. They can't really give a phone away for LESS than free, so the 4S is the free one (or $450 unlocked).

The 5C had to sell for something, so that one is the $99 phone (or $549 unlocked).

An iPad mini with cellular is $459. And there's odds the user won't even sign up for a contract. (The cell version has GPS/GLONASS, for mapping/location stuff, so many buy the cell version just for that and never activate the cell account.)

So, interesting to me that the 4S STILL sells for $450 unlocked. Yeah, gotta sell for more than the iPod touch at $229, but $450?

I think the 4S is what's cutting into the 5C sales. Not because people are buying the 4S instead, but because it exists at all, and that Apple had to price the 5C higher so there was differentiation.

Seems like the 5C should have been $0 and $99 ($450, $550 unlocked), and the 4S goes away.

But like I said before, we don't really need to worry about Apple. (World's most respected company, 10% of all business cash on hand, etc...)

They'll survive.

 

[ColdShadow]

I'm perhaps one of the few who'd prefer the 5c over the 5s.

While the 5s can't do anything over the 5c that would be important to me i think it's one of the worst looking phones that Apple has ever made.

you are definitely one of the very few..specially your comment about 5S..most people including me think 5S is very good looking and the the best looking iPhone after 4/4s.
5C is in my opinion the ugliest iPhone (original iPhone / 3GS are next).and probably has one of the worst designs of any Apple products ever.

 

[doelcm82]

The 4 was a good design, after all most phones will break if dropped onto hard surfaces without a case. The 4 was slightly more prone to this because of having glass back and front but I dropped mine a few times and it survived even though I didn't use a case.

I never broke my four (I always used a prophylactic bumper), but I had many friends who did, with relatively minor drops. But I really have dropped my 5 several times, without a case, and the glass was never cracked.

 

[TTile]

Yes. The iPhone 5C is not only a poor idea, it is blatantly taking advantage of people who are tricked into buying it. It is borderline fraud, as they call in the "new" iphone 5c, but nothing about it is new except the ugly color.

What?? This is absolute nonsense. Apple isn't hiding anything. The information about the phone is freely available on their website and every tech blog/review site imaginable. Furthermore the Apple store staff I spoke with were quick to point out that the 5c was similar to the 5.

To put it a different way, if you were Apple what choices would you have made when making the 5c? Would you not have repurposed your already proven but old technology? Did you want them to invent an entire new A6-like chip or something? I hope you realize that Android smartphone manufacturers do exactly what Apple did---take old technology, stick it in a new shinny package, and sell it as a mid-range phone. Are they committing fraud as well? Give me a break...

 

[iChrist]

What?? This is absolute nonsense. Apple isn't hiding anything. The information about the phone is freely available on their website and every tech blog/review site imaginable. Furthermore the Apple store staff I spoke with were quick to point out that the 5c was similar to the 5.

To put it a different way, if you were Apple what choices would you have made when making the 5c? Would you not have repurposed your already proven but old technology? Did you want them to invent an entire new A6-like chip or something? I hope you realize that Android smartphone manufacturers do exactly what Apple did---take old technology, stick it in a new shinny package, and sell it as a mid-range phone. Are they committing fraud as well? Give me a break...

You are obviously confused.

What are they going to do next year? Release a iPhone 5SC? Or an iPhone 6C that looks like a colored 5S? The whole concept is half-baked.

 

[TTile]

You are obviously confused.

What are they going to do next year? Release a iPhone 5SC? Or an iPhone 6C that looks like a colored 5S? The whole concept is half-baked.

Thanks for addressing none of my points but instead taking the conversation on a wild tangent. Brilliant.

 

[spicynujac]

do these prices have included shipping, taxes and employee salary or it's just the materials costs?

I believe it includes labor but taxes and shipping would vary by country so it wouldn't make sense to include them. There are more descriptive posts on macrumors that explain what is and isn't in the BOM. Basically, they exclude the marketing and development costs, software, and profit, all of which are needed to produce a product, but gives you an idea of a bare minimum that the product costs. The iphone has amazing margins, and earns Apple almost 2/3 of its profits. Ipads and computers are much less profitable.