Apple CEO Tim Cook: We sell the iPhone 5c as the mid-tier

[RaduTyrsina]

Apple held its financial conference call on Monday and it represented a good occasion for analysts and journalists to ask Apple CEO Tim Cook some questions or just to hear him reveal his plans for the future. He was asked about the lower price segments of the smartphone market and whether the iPhone 5c is Apple’s solution to cover.

Here’s what Apple’s CEO said:

“If you look at what we've done, we're selling the iPhone 4s as our entry offer. We sell the iPhone 5c as the mid-tier and the 5s. Our goal is to have growth across the iPhone but we want each of those categories to grow as compared to what we were doing previously. If you look at the total that we're making in the low end and mid tier and high end, the sum there, we'd like to grow in each one of those. We're really please that we did that.”

And he also added:

“What we did with our lineup this time was the 4s is replacing the 4. If you look at the US as an example, the 4s is now free. The 4 was free previously. When you translate that out of the US, it depends on the market as to what specifically happens. Currency changes and the strength of the dollar doesn't always play in our favor in some geos. We see the 4s as our entry iPhone offer that gives somebody the ability to access the entire ecosystem as a fantastic product. We understand that there is elasticity in that market and it will move accordingly.”

Therefore, it is wrong to assume that the iPhone 5c is an entry-level device that Apple has launched to cover the lower-priced segment of the market. At its Q4, conference, Apple announced that they have sold a record 150 million iPhones in fiscal 2013, up 25 million units from 2012.

Source: MacRumors

 

[DaveM]

It seems like this should be obvious. I've never understood the folks who have been treating the 5c as some kind of second-class citizen. It's based, of course, on the 5, with some minor upgrades and a colorful look. The plastic is anything but cheap, if anyone understands polycarbonates. We got a 5c for my wife and after having worked with it I'm very impressed.