The anticipation, very sparse, comes from Wall Street Journal (usually well informed on Apple news), which in turn picks it up from various specialized sites (from Digitimes to iLounge): the Cupertino-based company, a few months after the release of the iPhone 5, would be willing to launch a new low-cost iPhone on the market.
According to the WSJ, the new jewel of the bitten apple, defined as "a new budget iPhone model", would be de facto simply the cheapest version of the latest iPhone, with the same dimensions (4 inch touch screen, is the only detail revealed) and the same characteristics. The difference would be in the low-end materials used through the recycling of old products.
Some sources also speak of a new design, in the wake of the success of the iPad mini in particular in China, and in fact for this very reason the new smartphone should initially be intended only for the Asian giant and emerging countries. And it is precisely on this last aspect that the Wall Street Journal, stingy with further details, focuses its analysis, expressing more than one perplexity about the validity of any strategy.
In fact, the US economic daily recalls that in the third quarter of 2012, Apple held only 14,6% of smartphone sales worldwide, down 23% from the last quarter of 2011. In contrast, Samsung's Korean rivals grew exponentially from 8,8% market share at the end of 2010 to 31,3% in Q2012 XNUMX. Without count that, despite the crisis context and the greater appeal of Cupertino, Samsung ended the year with another record quarterly profit, noting that it expects operating income to rise from $8,1 billion to $8,5 billion in the final three months of 2012.
So will Apple's strategy of aiming for low cost only in emerging countries be correct? Perhaps not, given that the cost of the iPhone 5 (649 dollars in the US, even more abroad considering currency exchange rates) is already higher than that of various products in the Android universe, whose performances are just as competitive but at a more affordable price. The worries, however, are not only of the WSJ: since September, when it reached its peak on Wall Street, reaching 702 dollars per share (in conjunction with the release of the latest jewel), Apple stock fell 25%.
