Financial Accuracy

It is very well-known that the economy is not in very good shape and because of this many companies have gone into bankruptcy. For this reason, one may think that during these difficult times launching a new pricier product would be nonsense, wouldn’t you? Well, Apple doesn’t think the same way, they just announced the “iPhone 3G S” at a price of  $199 for 16GB  ($299 for 32GB) intending to keep up with other competitors like the Palm Pre, the Blackberry Storm, and the G-1 Phone. My guess is Apple doesn’t want to let go their customers so easily and they will even do the impossible in order to achieve this. So far, I think that the strategy is good and will give them the expected results. 

However, Apple’s strategy doesn’t end there, it was also announced that the new price for the iPhone 3G will be only $99. So, not only will they earn more money with the new iPhone (because they will), but they will hopefully get more people to buy the old iPhone. This means that sales will eventually go up and if everything goes well, Apple will get the attention of potential loyal customers (like me). Along with this, Apple cut the prices of the Macbook Pro Laptops from $2000 to $1200. I don’t remember something like this happening before with Apple or with any other brand. It is true that prices usually go down after a product has been on the market for a while, but not that much. 

To conclude, I only have some thoughts about this “good news”. It seems to me like Apple foresaw that if they didn’t do anything, the economic crisis would hit them hard. And because of this I immediately thought… Is Apple selling lesser than before? Are they desperate and found that this was the best and only way they could recover? What I would like to think is that they are just really smart and know how to make money.  

Eventually, time will let us know the results, until then, I’ll see if I can take advantage of the offer and buy one of the old iPhones.