AppleInsider Staff
Starting this Sunday, electronics retailer Best Buy will be offering $50 off the purchase of any new iPhone model with a service contract, marking a rare discount opportunity for Apple's smartphone lineup.
The upcoming sale will be a four-week-long promotion that applies to the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S on Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint, the three largest carriers in the U.S. The discount does not apply to the iPhone 4, which is already free with a two-year service contract, the company confirmed to AppleInsider.
The sale means shoppers will be able to buy an iPhone 4S for $49, a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5 for $149, a 32-gigabyte iPhone 5 for $249, or the top-end 64-gigabyte iPhone 5 for $349.
Customers will need to buy a new two-year service contract in order to receive the typical handset subsidy and Best Buy's special $50 discount. Discounts on some Android phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S III, are also planned to run from May 26 to June 1.
While discounts and buy one, get one free promotions are common for Android handsets and other smartphones, iPhone discounts tend to be infrequent because of Apple's strict pricing strategy.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
12 Comments
iPhone 5s on the way?
iPhone 5s on the way?
Memorial Day sale.
Memorial Day sale.
Don't recall the 4S seeing a similar discount last Memorial Day.
This, plus all the other iPhone 5 promotions that have been springing up over the last few weeks, sounds like clearing out inventory to me.
Falls in the time period of the WWDC so it sounds like maybe a new iPhone announcement with a couple weeks buffer for Apple to begin shipping.
Unlikely that it's indicative of an imminent iPhone release with iOS 7 beta not yet released to developers. Unfortunately, it is more likely an indicator of slowing iPhone 5 sales. I have not bought into the panic alarms, but I think Apple has made some missteps over the last 9 months. How many new things were announced last fall when some (especially iMac's) were not actually available because of supply shortages. Apple needs to have some sort of new or refreshed product announcement each quarter. That's doable. They just need to space them out a little. I also believe the time has passed when Apple can afford to only change the appearance of the iPhone every two years. That was fine and made sense when there was no real competition. Now there is lots of competition. Apple needs to deliver something new each year and one of those things needs to be an iPhone with a larger screen. Not 5" large but maybe 4.2" with a 4:3 ratio.