“The remarks exposed a rift for Apple in one of the largest emerging mobile-phone markets and added to concern that the iPhone maker is charging too much in developing economies,” Frier reports. “Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook faced questions after last week’s earnings report over whether the iPhone’s pricing was going to limit growth overseas. He responded that Apple’s focus on product quality trumped other considerations. ‘I firmly believe that people in the emerging markets want great products like they do in developed markets,’ Cook said during the call on July 24. The goal ‘is to make the very best product, and that’s more important and overshadows all other things.’”
Frier reports, “Unlike in the U.S., Russian consumers typically don’t sign up for long-term mobile-phone contracts. So it’s less practical for carriers to subsidize the phone’s cost themselves the way AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless do… After making the remarks about Apple, MTS softened its criticism later in the day. ‘While we have differences with Apple, we have a constructive relationship,’ Joshua Tulgan, an MTS spokesman, said in a statement. ‘Smartphones like the iPhone are important to our customers and our economy and we want to get them into the hands of as many people as possible.’”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Come on, Latsanych has to at least understand the basics of the industry and the subsidized vs. prepaid markets, right?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Sarah" and "cjpitt" for the heads up.]
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