SIGNAL BOOST

Facing weak iPhone sales, Apple is offering several aggressive trade-in deals,

Apple Inc. is experimenting with iPhone marketing strategies it rarely uses — such as discount promotions via generous device buyback terms — to help goose sales of its flagship product.

Company executives moved some marketing staff from oth- er projects to work on bolstering sales of the latest handsets in October, about a month after the iPhone XS went on sale and in the days around the launch of the iPhone XR, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Since then, Apple has embarked on a series of aggressive trade-in offers that have tem- porarily reduced the cost of some of its latest iPhones, a rare step for a company that’s been raising device prices in recent years to lift revenue and profit.

Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller declined to comment on the matter.

On Sunday evening, Apple kicked these efforts into high gear, adding a new banner to the top of its website advertising the iPhone XR for $449 (U.S.), $300 less than its official sticker price. The deal, noted with an asterisk and described at the bottom of the page, requires customers to trade in an iPhone 7 Plus, a high-end handset from two years ago.

Apple has lost about a fifth of its market value since the start of October on signs of waning iPhone demand. On Monday, iPhone supplier Cirrus Logic Inc. cut its holiday quarter sales forecast 16 per cent due to “recent weakness in the smartphone market.”

Apple has also stopped reporting iPhone unit sales, sparking concern its most-important product is no longer growing.