Posted on 05/24/2010 8:49:33 PM PDT by Swordmaker
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, plans to slash the price of Apple's 16GB 3GS iPhone to $97 beginning Tuesday.
Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is widely expected to unveil a brand-new iPhone next month, and could be working with retailers to clear out its remaining inventory of the about-to-be-outdated model.
At the new price, customers will save $100 on Apple's smart phone, which currently sells for $199. The deal requires that the phone be purchased with a two-year contract from AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive service provider.
"It is our commitment to always lead on price," Mehrdad Akbar, Wal-Mart's (WMT, Fortune 500) senior category director for wireless, in a prepared statement about the price change.
Apple sold 8.3 million iPhones last quarter, more than twice the amount sold during the same period a year ago.
Wal-Mart's pre-Memorial Day price whack comes as technology giants such as Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Research in Motion (RIM) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500), which recently snapped up Palm, vie for top dog status in the smart phone market. Industry analysts say that worldwide smart phone sales topped 54 million units in the first quarter, up nearly 49% from a year ago.
At $97, Wal-Mart's price slightly undercuts the $99 price tag several analysts anticipated for the remaining iPhone 3GS stock. When consumers get sight of a new iPhone model on the horizon, sales of the existing model typically falls off sharply.
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(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
i think its time to buy AT&T stocks !
bookmark.
It will always amaze me why anyone would pay the original retail price of around $500.00 for these hand-held devices when they first hit the market. And these all came out during this recession. I think many of them charged it and later filed bankruptcy. I always wait till the price of any gadget drops to about 100 dollars before I buy them. Remember when DVD players were around $200 to $300.00?, then a few years later they were 100 or less!
AT&T coverage and their customer service is the same. Spotty and most likely crap. First day of service here and phone would work great in the data center but not at all at my house, returned the phone and now the want the $70 for the 10 days I tried to get the phone to work right. Now using Vigin Mobile and no issues.
The iPhone is nice but I figure Apple teamed up with a provider that is the same. Overpriced, crap service and full of themselves. I will never buy an Apple product as they have burned me before.
I saw this article, and thought that perhaps someone was mis-interpreting the Tuesday, as tomorrow... and that the Tuesday might be next Tuesday, June 1st. It would make more sense...
I’m retarded when it comes to technology.
Can I get an iphone and just use my home WiFi? I mean, if I choose not to use phone service?
Because at this point it’s cheaper than an iPod Touch...???
It will work that way... but you have to have activated it...and have a SIM card in it... and that requires it once have had a contract.
Oh, and this price is only offered WITH a 2 year contract...
“Are you that doofus on the Mac vs. PC ads?
;-D’
I’m a PC. :o)
That's where I'm at. I don't need all those features, all that coolness, etc. I need a phone. I bought two $50 TrakFones and pay about $15/month for monthly minutes for BOTH phones.
That $375 early termination fee is what? TWO YEARS of TrakFone service?
We’ve never had a problem with Sprint. We have the family plan with unlimited data for 89 bucks a month for 3 lines. We love it.
Know the truth.
Apple came to Verizon first. The CEO told them they would NOT make any changes to their voicemail service and that Apple could go pack sand. Joking that what does a PC maker with 3% market share think they know about cell phones ha ha ha.
So Apple went to Sprint. Who said, so, you come to us AFTER Verizon? No thanks, do you think we are that stupid?
So Apple went to the smaller company Cingular who JUMPED at the chance to try this cool new device.
Cingular changed all their voicemail, coding, even price kickbacks. Then, came the WDC Demo. And the who world saw what was coming.
And Bell South which owned ATT bought Cingular outright, and practically overnight in one of the fastest merger acquisitions ever approved.
So, Apple did not, as you say, pick ATT because they are a selfish blah blah blah like Apple. No, far from it.
Verizon ans Sprint were STUPID. BLIND. SELFISH. And totally did NOT see the future coming and are stuck now with the crappy buggies crash prone copies.
Sadly, the utter ignorance of Verizon and Sprint means we are stuck with the greedy stupid ATT who bought up Cingular and the exclusive contract.
You can pay full retail and get one without a contract but not unlocked. AT&T recently said they would unlock any phone but an iPhone.
Wish Sprint had snagged the iPhone deal instead of AT&T. I’d be a happy iPhone owner I have no doubt.
Well, Apple tried working with Motorola before and it was a disaster phone that was made ... LOL...
I understand that Sprint was given an opportunity, but Sprint was stuck in the "old mode" of dealing with manufacturers of phones and couldn't "let Apple be Apple".
Now, that's exactly what AT&T said, with its CEO coming on stage with Steve Jobs (at the announcement of the iPhone) and said, "We let Apple be Apple," in designing and making the phone. AT&T had to even change their cel phone network to accomodate Apple in that one device -- the iPhone.
Now, think of that... a cel phone manufacturer, coming in and telling the cel phone service provider that they would have to change their entire network to accomodate just this one device (where no other manufacturer did that).
Well, AT&T was smart enough to recognize where the "future" was at. Sprint was plain dumb and stuck in the past and couldn't "work it out" with Apple.
In that case, it's Sprint's loss, as we can see now.
$97....and another $97 a month to run it.
LOL ... I see you haven't checked on that ... :-)
Of course, anyone can add higher level of services if you want... but if you're talking about the basic service that you get when you start off with the iPhone ... it's the following ..
Nationwide 450 min with rollover minutes - $40.00 Data Plan for iPhone (unlimited use) - $30.00 Total for both - $70.00
Now, you can step up to higher and higher minutes if you want. You can go with the unlimited minutes for another $30 in addition to that $40, making it a total of $70 for unliited minutes.
BUT, one should note that with "Rollover Minutes" you don't lose any of your minutes that you don't use the previous months and you can accumulate them for one year. And if you use 1/2 of your minutes they just add on to future months and you can use those minutes you never used in the past, for up to one year later (it rolls off if you don't use the minutes after one year).
So, a total of $70 sounds like a pretty darned good deal to me... a fantastic deal, in fact ... :-)
You can pay full retail and get one without a contract but not unlocked. AT&T recently said they would unlock any phone but an iPhone.
Ummmm..., you might not have known this, but you can get the iPhone unlocked, if you don't want to buy into the AT&T plan and you don't want to take AT&T's subsidy of the iPhone.
If you want an unlocked iPHone, and don't want the carrier's subsidy on the iPhone... you can get one here (just one place, for example ... :-) ...).
The latest Apple iPhone is here. No more waiting for the Apple iPhone 3GS. This fully unlocked cell phone is compatible with any GSM carrier around the world. You can now be the envy of all your friends and have the latest Apple iPhone on any GSM carrier even if that carrier doesn't have the iPhone 3GS available.
Sadly, the utter ignorance of Verizon and Sprint means we are stuck with the greedy stupid ATT who bought up Cingular and the exclusive contract.
Well, I can't see that AT&T is that bad of a company to have, actually, as far as cel service providers go, that is ... :-) ...
I mean, look at the pricing (as I showed in Post #35), having phone service for $40 with rollover minutes, and having an unlimited data plan for $30 ... I don't think that's bad at all. In fact, it sounds pretty fantastic to me.
Before I got the iPhone, was paying for two monthly service plans for WiFi across the country for $30 a month, each. And that was great, because between the two, I was getting coverage for my data plan, in a fairly comprehensive manner. So, that was costing me about $60 a month for those two.
Now, with iPhone I've got my e-mail and my web service anywhere I go, a whole lot better than the data plan I was paying $60 a month for (in order to "get coverage" in as many places as possible).
So, I reduced my data plan down from $60 a month to $30 a month, with the iPhone and got even better "coverage" as a result.
And along with that data plan, I got the voice plan for $40 a month, which also had "rollover minutes" so the minutes I did not use every month, I could still use them up fully, within a year of having not used them before.
It actually sounds like a pretty good deal to me...
That $375 early termination fee is what? TWO YEARS of TrakFone service?
That early termination fee is something that I've never considered relevant, actually. I mean, I don't intend to have cell phone service for a while and then not have phone service for a while, thus quitting it, and then later, get phone service again ... LOL ...
I'm going to keep using my iPhone every month, so why would I (or others) be concerned with early termination? I can't really see a big problem for the vast and overwhelming majority of users.
Perhaps there's some person here and there, that for some really big problem that they have, they've got to end their service and then they would have to pay that. But, that would be a rare thing, I think. It's not going to have any bearing on the vast and overwhelming majority of iPhone users.
Heck! ... with me I'm out of that item now, since I passed my contract period. And I bet a lot of others are well past their contract period, too.
I would not be seen in public with an iphone.
Considering how many of them I see everywhere I go... I see that not too many other people have that opinion ... LOL ...
A lot of people who can’t afford $199 will give the $97 phone a good look I am sure.
Well, you may not have known this, but people could always get a $99 iPhone, any time they wanted to ... :-) ...
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