Shane Cole
Apple continues to offer the iPhone 4 in China through Apple retail stores, carrier partners, and authorized resellers despite China's status as a launch country for the iPhone 5s and 5c.
In an unconventional move for the company, Apple has chosen to keep the three-year-old iPhone 4 on mainland Chinese shelves even after the unveiling of the new flagship iPhone 5s and mid-tier iPhone 5c. While China is not alone as a first-party country where the iPhone 4 is still sold — Brazil and Indonesia also offer it — it is the only nation to list the iPhone 4 alongside the iPhone 5c and 5s.
The aging handset remains available through Apple's official online and brick-and-mortar stores for 2,588 yuan ($423), 700 yuan ($114) less than the iPhone 4S and 1,900 yuan ($310) and 2,700 yuan ($441) less than the newly-introduced iPhone 5c and 5s, respectively. Apple also continues to offer installment plans for the iPhone 4, advertising payments of "about 119" yuan ($19) per month over 24 months.
Similarly, iPhone 4 launch carrier partner China Unicom still markets the device for 2,648 yuan ($433), while authorized resellers like brick-and-mortar retail giant Suning and online behemoth jd.com make the iPhone 4 available at varying, but roughly equivalent, prices.
While speculation exists that Apple has kept the iPhone 4 in circulation as a way of drawing down remaining inventory, the breadth of the phone's continuing distribution and the lack of indications from official channels that supplies are constrained signals that its availability is not temporary, and may be Cupertino's way of addressing the low-cost market that many believed they would target with the iPhone 5c.
Andrew Orr
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Amber Neely
18 Comments
Behold! The cheap iPhone!
The iPhone 4 with 8 GB at $420 cannot hold a candle to the Nexus 4 with 16 GB for $250 direct from Google. I am as dyed-in-the-wool an Apple fanboy as you'll find (our house has 4 macs, 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 iPods and an Apple TV), but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend $550 on an 5c for each of my kids. They're getting the Nexus 4 (I can buy TWO of those for LESS than the price of ONE 5c!! AND they have bigger screens- and they're just going to drop it anyway- so why not trash $250 instead of $550?). I'm an Apple shareholder, but they've just gone too far this time. I guess Android is now the "OS for the rest of us" (who don't have that kind of money and who don't want to be locked into a plan).
What inventory? Unattributed speculation is worthless in an otherwise factual article. Don't start degrading your own articles like that.
Stop it.
Sure it can't¡
Yeah, it's called a contract.
I can buy two bags of M&Ms for less than the price of one bar of Richard Donnelly chocolate.
Sounds more like the failings you have here about buying quality products translate to your instruction as a parent in keeping your children from destroying their possessions.
How about you go too far away from us. To MacRumors, where this sort of crap is allowed.
[quote name="ifij775" url="/t/159500/iphone-4-remains-widely-available-in-china-after-iphone-5s-5c-debut#post_2395549"]Behold! The cheap iPhone! [/quote] Made of glass and steel. Also, iPod dock connector. It's pretty awesome for "cheap."