“In the weeks and months leading up to Apple’s Wednesday announcement of a third-generation iPad, there were rumors the company might introduce a $299 version to be more competitive against low-cost tablets such as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet,” Seth Fiegerman writes for TheStreet. “One version of this rumor claimed that Apple would debut a 7-inch iPad in the $249 to $299 price range; another claimed the company would introduce a cheaper 8 GB iPad 2; and some just speculated that the company could choose to slash the price of the baseline 16 GB iPad 2 to $299.”
“pple did cut the price of the iPad 2 from $499 to $399 and has even gone so far as to offer a refurbished version for $349, but that’s as low as it’s willing to go, at least for now,” Fiegerman writes. “The company thinks being too aggressive in pricing the iPad 2 might actually do more harm than good. It would cut into profit margins and there is not enough competition to justify that loss.”
Fiegerman writes, “Some might wonder why Apple hasn’t simply offered the first-generation iPad for $299… ‘There’s a certain amount of capability that they want current devices to have,’ says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at the Gartner research firm, who notes that the first-generation iPad may already be a little too outdated to be marketed as part of Apple’s current product line, no matter how much it costs. ‘We are already seeing applications that are sophisticated and complex that don’t work on the original iPad. That’s something that will only get worse over time.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No real competition means no $299 iPad.