Few days ago, we had talked about an ongoing rumor that claimed Apple gearing up to hit the mass market segment with introducing their first line of less expensive iPhones. The so called “iPhone nano” would be relatively cheaper and half the size of the regular iPhone. Now, another source claims that Apple, at least for now, is not willing to expand the iPhone family by selling such variants of iPhones. Though some analysts are in favor of the cheaper iPhone.
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Apple has dominated the high end of the smartphone market, but the company is facing increasing competition from devices running Google’s Android, which collectively outsell the iPhone. Analysts said it would make sense for Apple to introduce a cheaper iPhone, especially in overseas markets where carriers do not subsidize handsets. Unsubsidized handsets are often called prepaid.
If they are going to be a player in the global market they have to have a prepaid option, said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. But Mr. Munster said that to be successful, a prepaid iPhone would have to be able to run the more than 300,000 apps available in the App Store.
A. M. Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said that a low-priced iPhone could help Apple expand its unit sales of the device sixfold.
The smaller version of the iPhone wouldn’t necessarily reduce the manufacturing costs and will also force many developers to re-write their applications to be compatible with the smaller screens. Apple wants to avoid all that. The source also pointed out that Apple is currently focused on bringing out the next version of iPhones.