We have seen in the past that Apple has offered their mid tier devices in lower storage capacity compared to what they were launched at. The iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s have all been made available in 8 GB variant in the past at lower prices than what was advertised at the start. However, most of these have come at the dying cycle of the product or when they were at least a generation or two older.
The iPhone 5c was announced last year, barely six months ago with the iPhone 5s, and there are already reports claiming that the device could be available in an 8GB variant, pointing to a lower MRP as well. The iPhone 5c has certainly not seen the volume numbers that perhaps Apple had expected. Billed as the cheaper iPhone, the iPhone 5c is infact just as expensive as some of the flagship models of Android competitors. So, if Apple is going the aggressive route by reducing the price and halving the minimum storage you just might see a late resurgence in the sales numbers.
There was another report in the past couple of weeks, that Apple was sitting on about 3 Million unsold iPhone 5c devices which is a lot of wasted inventory. Maybe, this an effort to propel sales of those devices too.
According to an O2 document in Germany obtained here, the iPhone 5c 8 GB could launch as early as today, March 18th in Europe. According to the blog, the iPhone 5c would cost about 509 Euros which is 60 Euros cheaper than the iPhone 5c 16 GB which retails at about 569 Euros. There have been no other changes to the device apart from the storage space. This almost 10% reduction in price is definitely a sweet deal if you wanted to pick the iPhone 5c but could not justify the price. There is currently no word on if there will be a global rollout or will we in India see an 8GB model. However, observing Apple’s stance in India recently and given the price sensitive market that India is, a calculated guess says, the device will come the Indian shores soon for round about Rs. 34K which would be about 5K cheaper than the 16 GB iPhone 5c.
Sources: Engadget/ Caschy’s Blog
