Foxconn's Zhengzhou Factory to Reportedly Cease Production of iPhone 5c

[jav6454]

my wife loves the iPhone 5C, she don't want the 5S. I think a lot of people are like her.

I'm not even talking about what people like or not. I'm talking about price. If the 5C was supposed to be an entry level iPhone, might as well treat it as such. $149 should have been the top price for the unit (under contract that is); not $199.

Those $50 can do wonders on people on that price edge. Plus, it would highlight the difference between the higher priced (and albeit more feature rich) 5S.

 

[Rogifan]

And why it's always become a sensitive topic for you?
Everytime some negative news about 5C you always come and try so hard to save the day? What's the deal here exactly?

Even your signature says it all?

Point is Apple has surplus 5C stocks in stores they have to cease productions.
So the choice here is simple; Apple ordered too many, or the demand is too low.
Either way it doesn't look good.

Because I see a lot of hypocrisy and D&G/FUD based on rumors that may or may not be true. Also I see a lot of people knocking a device they don't own and have no intentions of ever owning. If you check out the 5C thread in the iPhone forum most 5C owners appear to be happy with their purchase. 5C got good reviews (aside from price). You see my sig from Engadget's review. In the Verge review they said Samsung and others should take note as the 5C shows how to do plastic right. So yeah I think this phone is being unfairly knocked. And btw...I'm an iPhone 5 owner who has no plans to ever own a 5C. When my contrast is up next year I'll upgrade to whatever the flagship model is.

 

[Mainsail]

I bought my daughter a 5C, and she loves it. I am really impressed by the durability of the plastic. When you look at the display models at the Apple store, there isn't a scratch on them. When I see the 5C in the wild, folk tend to use them without cases. Less bulk. One less thing to buy.

If they sell more 5c then 4s compared to last year, then this was a good move for Apple. We will see how it works out.

 

[OC40]

Apple never said it was going to be low cost. Lots and lots of rumors did. It's funny to see how history changes perception in time.

I was thinking the same thing. Apple never touted the 5C as low cost. All of the rumor mills did.

 

[Rogifan]

yea... the 5C does not boil down to its just being plastic. Its got slower processor, inferior camera, etc. You are looking at two phones in the lineup with different specs but not real different pricing.

But yet I don't remember anyone complaining about the 4S being too expensive when the 5 came out. Or the 4 when the 4S was released.

 

[J. Jizzle]

The whole 5C product is ironic to me. Back when the 5 came out people complained about getting scratches on their phones... Well, what did Apple do in response? They re-released the iPhone 5 in a cheaper, plastic shell, that as to my understanding doesn't scratch as easily, and... NO ONE WANTS TO BUY IT. Yes, the price has a lot to do with it, but It is just funny to me how people complain but still learn to live with it. Now everyone wants the 5 back.

 

[tod]

This is unfortunate. I thought that colorful, high quality plastic was a great addition to the cold, sterile look of the other phone and it would have been my choice if I was in the market for a phone. But then, my preferred color is yellow, making me an outlier among outliers. It's a good thing I don't run Apple.

 

[MacVista]

Like I said when it came out, Apple should have added the color to the metal and sold the iPhone 5 for the same price as the iPhone 5C.
Instead, they wasted all that money making another phone.

 

[norisq]

I'd rather they just focused on the one model, but kept selling the previous one at a much cheaper price like in the past.

They basically did just that. The 5C has all the hardware from the iPhone 5, but with the plastic design it is much cheaper to produce. Selling it "much cheaper" is what they missed I think.

 

[158273]

Trelawney predicted this:

"...for neither can live while the other survives..."

 

[jroadley]

At the time of the release, Blackberry was going to ground - apple could of tempted all those blackberry users over to iOs and more importantly the app store and iTunes to start buying their content.

Without it being a cheap phone - who is it marketed at ?

 

[Tknull]

Wait wait wait...are you telling me that people don't want a cell phone that looks like it was made by Fisher-Price?

Haha...
well, call me crazy but I actually prefer the look and feel of the 5c to the 5s. I just don't prefer it enough to ignore the fact that the 5s has the A7, better camera, touch id, etc.

 

[158273]

Without it being a cheap phone - who is it marketed at ?

People who prefer the design and the feel of the 5C. People who have asked Apple employees for years why the iPhone doesn't come in different colors (heard this anectode from several employees). Also, parents who want to buy their kids a durable iPhone.

 

[Tronic]

I don't understand why Apple is so in love with all these pastel colors. I bet if they had been richer shades they would have sold better.

 

[Mr-Kerrse]

I am glad you all knew better than Apple

 

[WilliamLondon]

The 5C is a fascinating product. Every time we get one of these stories it's a new factory that supposedly is cutting production. How many more times can Apple cut production? With all the stories over the past month or so you'd think Apple wasn't manufacturing any 5Cs at this point. And yet Wall Street really doesn't seem to care as not one of these rumors has really has a negative impact on the stock. The only people that seem to care are the concern trolls like Henry Blodget over at Business Insider.

Yep, Apple failed by launching two new iPhones at the same time both together and individually that have sold more than any other previous iPhone launch, and yet for some reason this is viewed by armchair CEOs and product pricing know-it-alls that the 5c is an utter failure. Why, Apple should fire Tim Cook and Jony Ive and hire some of the obviously more skilled and experienced people on here, I'm sure Wall Street would jump for joy at the announcement.

 

[158273]

Apple ordered too many, or the demand is too low. Either way it doesn't look good.

Do you seriously expect Apple to have a perfect estimation for how many people will buy the iPhone 5c? Of course there's going to be a surplus, would you rather see Apple run out of stock of both of its new models, rather than just the 5s?

Doesn't it make sense to you that Apple would produce a high number of these for launch and scale back production as the year goes on? In fact, I would assume they do this with every previous new model.

 

[Tknull]

But yet I don't remember anyone complaining about the 4S being too expensive when the 5 came out. Or the 4 when the 4S was released.

My hunch (with nothing to back this up with ) is that many/most did feel it was too expensive. I think that a large part of the reason Apple keep those older models available is to sell in bulk to institutions, to whom the large monetary difference (when dealing with hundreds/thousands of phones) is more important than minor spec differences. I think its when the person who is actually going to use the phone is the one paying for it that they will realize or care that they are paying only a little more for a better phone.

 

[Quu]

No point buying the iPhone 5C when you can get an iPhone 5 on the used market for less and they have the same specifications.

Except the iPhone 5 looks better and shares the 5S's aesthetics. The 5 and 5S design is what people want, not this plastic look of the 5C.

Apple were silly to misread the market thinking people would pay such a high price for a plastic iPhone.

 

[g0odfr1end102]

The way I see it, the iPhone 5C is a GREAT device. It is by NO MEANS a low-budget phone.
The only thing Apple got wrong is the price point...

 

[RebornProphet]

Yet oddly enough the 5c is free in the UK on most tariffs below £40. £32pm is the best I found so far with unlimited mins/texts and 4G data.

 

[xdhd350]

yea... the 5C does not boil down to its just being plastic. Its got slower processor, inferior camera, etc. You are looking at two phones in the lineup with different specs but not real different pricing.

As have the prior year flagship phones in years past. At the same price point as the 5c. So yeah, as I posted above and others pointed out, the bright plastic back is a visual tell that someone bought the cheaper model. In years past, that fact wasn't so obvious. Or as others have pointed out, maybe its the color choice that turns people off.

 

[timber]

I think that Apple is being a victim of its USA centric approach

When something costs 300 or whatever (in a contract) as it seams to be the case in the USA, 100 is a good discount.

When something costs around 700 to 800 (the 5s price in markets like Europe where people favour owning the phone), 100 is nothing for a clearly inferior product.

 

[Thunderhawks]

I don't understand why Apple is so in love with all these pastel colors. I bet if they had been richer shades they would have sold better.

Two problems:

No neutral/BLACK (people like that) and bad color choices

Bad pricing.

As somebody already posted make that the entry phone at $ 99 with a contract.

Nobody cares that it is solidly built and if you are in the market for as phone with a two year contract $ 100 isn't a big difference for the abetter phone..

$ 300 would be.

 

[158273]

I think that Apple is being a victim of its USA centric approach

When something costs 300 or whatever (in a contract) as it seams to be the case in the USA, 100 is a good discount.

When something costs around 700 to 800 (the 5s price in markets like Europe where people favour owning the phone), 100 is nothing for a clearly inferior product.

Don't see how this is exclusive to USA? I would say this is a worldwide attitude. When it's in the thousands, like a house or a car, an extra hundred dollars doesn't matter. When it's one dollar, suddenly 50 cents more is a rip-off.