“It would be ‘impossible’ for Apple to successfully build a cheap iPhone without doing lasting damage to the company’s highly profitable and successful smartphone brand, analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company believes,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“Wolf’s thesis was presented on Wednesday in a note to investors, a copy of which was provided to AppleInsider. In it, the analyst went as far as to say that building a cheap iPhone to capture the low end of the smartphone market would be an ‘insane idea’ for Apple, destroying the company’s gross profits seen in its current strategy,” Hughes reports. “The analyst doesn’t believe that Apple will change its iPhone pricing, even as the maturing smartphone market inevitably becomes saturated, limiting growth potential. Wolf also doesn’t believe that carriers in markets like the U.S., where contract subsidies are common, would begin cutting back on those subsidies, as executives at AT&T have suggested they will.”
Hughes reports, “‘The evidence suggests that Android users are switching to the iPhone in far greater numbers than users switching from the iPhone,’ Wolf wrote. ‘In a saturated market, we believe, if anything, that the migration of Android users to the iPhone will accelerate, absent significant price cuts on Android phones. Obviously, growth will slow. But we don’t believe it will stop.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wolf, one of the best Apple analysts, is right, of course.
Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers.
Apple has no need to bother with the Hee Haw demographic.
If you’re still waitng for a “cheap iPhone,” you’re not an Apple customer.
Related articles:
What we mean by ‘Hee Haw demographic’ – November 13, 2013
Yankee Group: iPhone ownership in the U.S. will top Android by 2015 – April 26, 2013
