Apple unveiled two new iPhones at a special event
held at its Cupertino headquarters on Tuesday. It
announced iPhone 5s , successor to the iPhone 5 ,
which comes with a lot of new features like a
brand new A7 processor, the first 64-bit chip
inside a smartphone, improved camera, and, the
highlight of the device, a fingerprint-scanner
called Touch ID.
Apple also unveiled iPhone 5c , which was widely
anticipated to be the low-cost iPhone, but it
turned out to be a big disappointment on that
aspect. While the iPhone 5c boasts impressive
hardware specifications and comes in a wide
variety of colours, the key criteria for this iPhone
was always going to be the price, and this is
where it disappoints.
The iPhone 5c was supposed to be Apple's
weapon to take on Android in at least the mid-
level smartphone segment, if an entry-level
pricing was never going to come to fruition.
However, one look at the off-contract pricing for
the iPhone 5s in various regions, and all those
hopes can be put to rest.
The entry-level 16GB iPhone 5c without a
contract has been priced at $549 in the US. That
comes out to a whopping Rs. 35,000 at current
exchange rates (1 USD = 63.65 INR) and does
not include the duties and other charges that
come in while pricing a product in India. If you
were hoping for a sub-Rs. 25,000 pricing for the
iPhone 5c in India, it's safe to say we won't see
anything like that.
The pricing in other regions is even worse, with
the iPhone 5c priced at 599 euros (approximately
Rs. 50,500) in Germany and 469 pounds in the UK
(approximately Rs. 47,000). Of course both those
prices include VAT, which can be sizeable. Pricing
in Hong Kong is HKD 4,688 (approximately Rs.
38,500). However, it's the pricing in China, one of
two "emerging markets" - the other being India -
that the iPhone 5c was said to be targeting that
is really surprising. The iPhone 5c price in China
is 4488 Chinese Yuan Renminbi, which works out
to over Rs. 46,500, without duties or any other
charges.
With just a $100 price difference between the
iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s, it's a little difficult
to fathom why the iPhone 5c even exists. The
iPhone 5c surely won't help Apple penetrate into
any newer markets, and its only selling point
seems to the number of colours it's available in.
It seems Apple is not willing to shed its
'premium' tag just yet, and that, more than
anything else from Tuesday's event. will surely
disappoint millions who were hoping to see Apple
in a more 'affordable' avatar.
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