Phil Schiller Indirectly Suggests Apple Would Never Make a Cheap iPhone

Phil Schiller

Phil Schiller

In an interview with Shanghai Evening News, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing made claims that Apple would never make a cheap iPhone. However, Schiller’s comments can be taken to mean that Apple would never introduce a lower quality product into the market as opposed to not introducing a lower cost or “cheap” and smaller iPhone  [Google Translation].

Apple confirmed Schiller’s interview with the Chinese newspaper to The Next Web after numerous reports and rumors online began to surface that the Cupertino, California company was working on a lower-end iPhone for emerging markets such as China.

At first, non-smartphones were popular in the Chinese market, now cheap smartphones are more popular and non-smartphones are out. Despite the popularity of cheap smartphones, this will never be the future of Apple’s products. In fact, although Apple’s market share of smartphones is just about 20%, we own the 75% of the profit.

The possibility of a cheaper iPhone was confirmed by major news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, and even Bloomberg who mentioned that Apple was in fact looking to release a “a smaller, cheaper version of the iPhone as soon as this year”. Schiller outrightly negated these claims, saying that although cheap smartphones are popular, “this will never be the future of Apple’s products”.

Rumors about Apple introducing a cheaper iPhone with no contract have been around for quite some time, and it makes sense that the company would try and take on Android, which has seen expansion in the low-end market. However, it seems that with Schiller’s comments, a cheaper iPhone may not be coming in the near future but perhaps a cheaper, more revolutionary iPhone that meets Apple customer’s standards as seen with the iPad mini.

{Via AppleInsider}

Advertisement

Leave a Reply