Apple is working on lower-priced iPhones in order to broaden the appeal of its smartphone and take a bigger slice of the global market, according to Bernstein Research analyst, Tony Sacconaghi.
A report on Forbes’ website describes how Sacconaghi met with Apple COO and current acting CEO, Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer, and VP of Internet Services, Eddy Cue last week. During the meeting Cook explained that the Apple doesn’t want its products to be ‘just for the rich’ and that it is not ‘ceding any market.’
Cook, according to the report, explained that Apple is working hard on products aimed at the prepaid market and had spent ‘huge energy’ in one of the world’s biggest prepaid mobile phone markets, China. Currently, the cheapest prepaid sim-free iPhone is the 8GB 3GS which costs £428.
Cook also described the iPhone as ‘the mother of all halos,’ a reference to the so-called halo-effect. The halo-effect was a term used to describe the positive effect the iPod had on sales of Macs when it became popular. Mac sales have continued to grow steeply since the first iPhone was launched.
The tablet market, another area where Apple has enjoyed huge success, would, said Cook, eventually be much bigger than the PC market. Sacconaghi estimated that if that it could be a $60bn to $100bn business for Apple. While the company expects greater competition in the tablet market than it has had in the smartphone arena, Cook said that Apple’s head start would help it and that it has ‘interesting new things’ in the pipeline.
One of those things, of course, is the iPad 2, expected to be announced tomorrow during a special event hosted by Apple in San Francisco. We’ll have the news from that event here on MacUser as it breaks.
