Price War: Walmart Is Latest to Drop Price of iPhone 5c
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Apple, Inc.(NEW YORK) — The iPhone 5c price drop war is on. After Best Buy announced Thursday that it was planning to offer Apple’s iPhone 5c for $50 with a two-year contract — nearly half of Apple’s $99 price — Walmart has announced that it will offer the phone for $45.
“This is what we do — low prices is what we do,” Sarah Spencer McKinney, director of corporate communications for Walmart, told ABC News. “As a price leader, we are always looking for ways to surprise our customers with low prices and disrupt the competition.”
McKinney told ABC News to expect the price to remain at $45 throughout the holiday season. The deal began on Friday and is only available to customers in stores who sign a two-year contract on the handset.
While both Walmart and Best Buy maintain that this is just a deal to drive attention to the iPhone 5c, the price drop comes as the higher-end iPhone 5s has been sold out at various stores. The 5s has a faster processor, better camera and a new fingerprint reader embedded in the home button.
Apple declined to comment on the Best Buy or Walmart deals or on the specific sales numbers of the iPhone 5c.
“I think the 5c has gotten overshadowed and, given that the 5s isn’t available everywhere, this is a way to get people excited about the latest and greatest Apple product,” Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, told ABC News.
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