It seems iPhone 4 has been withdrawn
again but this time gone permanently. Apple actually stopped producing iPhone 4
last September globally, but in India Apple re-supplied iPhone 4 units as
iPhone 4 was the most sold as well as cheapest Apple Smartphone.
And people skipped Android in favor of a
cheaper iPhone 4, but after pushing the sales volume up for Apple (this was the
real strategy behind all this), the company decided to bid good bye to iPhone
4.
Also Apple reported a $41 drop in the
global Average Selling Price (ASP) of iPhones to $596 in March. Which according
to the analysts, was due to the re launch of iPhone 4 and the price cut on
iPhone 4S on all emerging markets. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the impact
of the iPhone 4 was minimal as the firm sold "a very low single-digit
percentage of those" in the quarter.
One of company’s trade partners said
Apple will now pull out the iPhone 4 from all markets, and another partner said
iPhone 4 had served its purpose in India, it doubled the consumer base of
iPhones to more than 25 lakh people in one year, the partner also added, iPhone
users generally being brand loyal, it's unlikely that these users will migrate
to any other brand.
Last month, Apple introduced buy-back
offer on iPhone 4S of Rs. 7500, that help Apple reduce the gap with iPhone 4 to
Rs. 3,000.
"With the buyback offer, iPhone 4s is now Apple's largest selling model by the number of units sold and also amongst our top five selling models," said Himanshu Chakrawarti, CEO, The Mobile Store (India’s largest cell phone retail chain). Since the buyback offer, retailers said to have witnessed iPhone 4S sales getting double in India.
"It's been a tactical move by Apple
whereby consumers are willing to pay a little more for a newer model."
said Sathish Babu, founder of cellphone retail chain UniverCell
Telecommunications, referring to the buyback offer.
And one most important factor for the
removal of iPhone 4 was reported by one trade partner that is the latest iOS 7.
"Apple has been globally chided by the tech community for the poor performance of its latest operating system on iPhone 4 and hence this factor too played a role... since it mars the entire Apple experience among first-time buyers," the person said.
Apple had reported to have record sales
for iPhones in Brazil, Russia, India and China in the last quarter. Sales in India
rise up by 55% Apple CEO Tim Cook himself admitted. And all the sales increase
was mostly due to the lower priced iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.
As reported by CyberMedia, Apple’s
market share in the Indian Smartphone market in the first quarter was 2.4%. Led
by Samsung with 38.9% and followed by Micromax at 19.1%, Karbonn at 6.9%, Lava
at 6.1% and Nokia at 5.3%.
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