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Why price points matter: Will buyers push back on highest-end iPhone 6?

Consumers are becoming smarter about the full price of their phones and manufacturers are offering great fair-priced options. Is Apple immune to price competition when it comes to the iPhone?
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

iPhone competition continues to evolve at a fast pace with other platforms providing everything you find in an iPhone — often times much more — at reasonable pricing levels.

Apple's lowest cost model, currently 16GB, is priced higher than most every other highest-end smartphone model. When you then buy a model with more capacity in your iPhone, the pricing skyrockets. While Apple continues to charge a premium for its smartphones, we see almost every other smartphone maker launch their own high-end models between $550 to $650, with the option for storage expansion via low-cost microSD cards.

For the last few years, Apple iPhones have been priced at $649, $749, and $849 for varying degrees of storage. If you live somewhere with sales tax then your price out the door could be greater than $925 for the 64GB model iPhone 5s. When you see the Moto G available for $249, it can be tough to justify the high price of the iPhone.

Recent reports speculate that the new iPhone 6 may come with a $50 premium for the 4.7-inch model and $100 premium for the 5.5-inch model, which Apple is expecting to reveal for the first time on September 9.

If these price premiums turn out to be true, the top of the line 5.5-inch model would cost the average buyer about $1,000.

Highly capable and reasonably priced smartphones are selling like hotcakes, as consumers become increasingly more knowledgeable about the true cost of their phones. 

Previous sales figures have shown Apple to sell millions of its new iPhones on opening weekends, as well as for the following several months. But, I am curious to see if consumers push back a bit on the high price of Apple's iPhone when there are other compelling smartphones available for a much lower price. A recent article in a San Diego business journal raved about the high quality, low cost smartphones coming out of China and I think consumers will soon wake up to understand the real cost of their smartphone. They are not $199 or $299 like US carriers want you to think. Look at the full price and make a decision based on what you really need.

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