New iPhones Already Discounted at Walmart

[ForgoTheConsequence]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

In what might be an unprecedented move by Apple Inc. (AAPL), the company apparently has agreed to permit Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) to sell the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S at discount prices. The 5C, which carries a list price of $99, will sell for $79, and the 5S will sell for $189, compared with the list price of $199.
Apple surely will receive its full selling price from Walmart, so revenues will not be affected, but the optics are unusual to say the least. Discounting a new product just two days after it has been introduced is new ground for Apple, at least in our memory. Why would the company do this?

It is no secret that the new iPhones have been greeted with a lukewarm reception at best, and perhaps Apple is angling to bump up sales numbers by letting Walmart discount the phones immediately. If consumers believe there is a stampede for the new phones, well, maybe they will create one.

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/iphones-already-discounted-walmart-143046267.html

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Walmart and Apple? The brand (I mean lifestyle) is circling the drain. "Oh you treat your employees like garbage too? Lets do business!"

[Auggie]

1. I totally understand lowering prices three to six months after a products introduction ...

it's standard marketing procedue. But two days?

I don't agree the brand is "circling the drain." On the world stage image is trumped by price, and Apple has to respond accordingly.

[coldmountain]

2. What is the alternative? Build a phone in you garage? Samsung uses similar production scenarios

Is Apple not supposed to sell at WallMart like every other electronics company?

Why is Apple held to a different standard than say Toyota?

Toyota: Auto Industry Race to the Bottom

by Barbara Briggs, Special to CorpWatch
September 16th, 2008
Beneath Toyota’s buffed shine lies a dark undercoat. The Toyota Corporation enjoys a fine reputation for well-built cars, environmental innovation, flexible production lines and effective management practices. But in its quest for ever-increasing efficiency, profitability and growth, the world’s largest auto manufacturer has sparked a race to the bottom that, like its car sales, is global in scope.

Around the world, the company has been complicit in union busting in the Philippines, and engages in cozy relationships with Burma/Myanmar’s military dictatorship.

In the U.S. – where Toyota has 13 facilities employing some 36,000 people, and sells an average of 56,923 vehicles each week – the need of the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler) auto companies to compete is causing profound changes in the industry.

And in Japan, at its flagship operation in Toyota City, some 30 percent of the workforce is temporary workers who earn as little as half what permanent employees do. In the surrounding area, a network of closely-related supplier companies utilizes thousands of foreign guest workers under conditions that, by many definitions, qualify as human trafficking.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15182

[ForgoTheConsequence]

3. I guess it was wishful thinking....however.....

Walmart and Apple are both lifestyle brands....and those lifestyles don't really mesh.

I heard a number of Apple fanboys complaining about the influx of poorer people with Iphones and Apple products before the new "cheap" Iphone was announced.

I don't think Apple is dead but I think a good chunk of it died with Steve Jobs. New products announcements are pretty blah anymore. Oh you took your last phone and put it in a cheaper plastic case? Innovative!

[leftyohiolib]

4. wtf "Apple fanboys complaining about the influx of poorer people with Iphones" sounds like apple

fanboys are assholes

[FredisDead]

7. Most of them are Idiots also.

[Codeine]

15. I really don't think you've heard anybody doing that.

Honestly, I do not believe that.

[FredisDead]

5. These are not off-contract phones

to get that price you have to get a two year contract.

[onehandle]

6. Walmart discounts everything. They've discounted iPhones for years. The Apple Store price matches.

Nothing new. That story is just linkbait for Yahoo Finance.

Headlines with 'Apple' in the headline is the best way to drive up clicks.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

10. Care to post proof?

I don't believe Walmart has ever discounted Iphones this soon after a new launch, but if you would like to backup your claim go ahead. I know when I worked for a rival retailer we had strict rules on how the Iphone could be priced, so instead of cutting the price we would give store gift cards as incentives instead.


This must be hard for Apple cultists to deal with though. Now Joe Six Pack will be able to buy an Iphone, a case of Coors and a 25 pack of Hanes t-shirts all in one trip. We might start seeing Apple stickers on lifted Fords instead of Volvos, VWs and Subarus.

[onehandle]

12. September 2012: Walmart Discounts iPhone 5

http://gizmodo.com/5943201/wal+mart-is-the-cheapest-place-to-buy-an-iphone-5-pre+orders-start-at-8am

I bought mine in person after launch and got it price matched by Verizon.

But if you are new to our fine country, you may not be familiar with the fact that Walmart is a discount store.

[coldmountain]

14. There have been Apple stickers on all sorts of vehicle for years going back to the rainbow ones

[Orrex]

8. But the meme is that Applie is Pure Goodness and Walmart is Pure Evil

How can they possibly interact without exploding like matter & antimatter?

[Earth_First]

9. The 'out-of-contract' unsubsidized price of the 5C is still $549.

As for the 2-year comittment price point, that's anyone's guess why Apple went this route in partnering with Qal Mart.

I have an idea...

[paulrandfu]

11. Can get a better android phone free

with a contract. The Apple fad is finally ending.

[coldmountain]

13. You can support an American Company and also get iphone 4 "free" with a contract

[Godhumor]

16. Considering where the iPhone is manufactured and assembled, the buy American rings hollow

If you mean it, support the Moto X. Google is American and the Moto is assembled here.

[coldmountain]

17. Motorola X just came out and is only Android phone assembled in US

T-Mobile Moto X shows up in Motorola’s site, but you still can’t get it.
http://phandroid.com/2013/09/09/t-mobile-moto-x-buy/

I had a Motorola Droid when they came out and it wasn't as good as a iPhone.

BTW, Motorola was one of the first American companies that led the charge to build in China that forced Apple and others to build there.
http://www.bernardavishai.info/Motorola%20in%20China.pdf