APPLE SLASHES IPHONE 6S, 6S PLUS PRICES BY UP TO ~22,000

Apple has slashed rates of the higher-end version of its iPhone 6s and 6s Plus by ~22,000 in India, as it prepares to begin sales of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus from October 7. The move is aimed at tapping aspirational buyers, who might not want to cough up the full price for the newer model and increase market share.

“The price drop won’t move the needle much,” said Neil Shah, director at Counterpoint Research. “However, with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle, it gives Apple a window of opportunity to attract premium Samsung customers, with attractive offers on the iPhone 6s and 7. This could bump up Apple’s share in the premium smartphone market to above 60 per cent from 47 per cent currently.”

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is facing a global recall due to faulty batteries that are a potential fire hazard.

Prices of the 128GB variants of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus were dropped from ~82,000 and ~92,000 to ~60,000 and ~70,000, respectively. Apple usually drops the rates of older generation devices in order to appeal to buyers, who might not want to splurge on the latest devices.

The 16GB and 64GB variants of last year’s iPhone models have been discontinued, and the company has introduced a 32GB variant of both devices. The new base variant of the iPhone 6s will cost ~50,000, while that of the 6s Plus will cost ~60,000. It isn’t clear if Apple will continue to sell the older iPhone 6 variants in India.

This time around, the large drops in price were warranted by Apple’s move to upgrade the storage on its iPhone 7 and 7 Plus to a maximum of 256GB, making the 128GB model the mid-variant. With the price cut, the 128GB versions of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will cost ~10,000 less than their newer counterparts.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed the change in pricing, while the prices were also updated on the Apple India website.

“There are two types of iPhone buyers - one aspirational, the other who is willing to pay a high price to own the latest device. There has always been cannibalisation of the new model sales from older versions,” said Vishal Tripathi, analyst at research firm Gartner.

Apart from reducing the price of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the company also slashed the rate of its low-cost iPhone SE by ~4,000. The 64GB iPhone SE will now cost ~44,000 as opposed to its initial launch price of ~49,000. The 16GB variant of the device will continue to retail at ~39,000.

With the launch of the iPhone 7 next month, it is to be seen if Apple is able to maintain its stratospheric growth in India. In the nine months that ended June 30, sales of the iPhone in India were up 51 per cent. However, given that most of the significant upgrades on the new iPhones will ship only with the larger, more expensive iPhone 7 Plus, uptake of the older iPhone could be higher this year around.