Apple to take big bite off competition and sell budget iPhone for as low as Dh364?

Shocking! Apple could sell its new iPhone for just Dh546. If you are not shocked enough, here’s another one… the pricing might even get as low as just Dh364, as the Cupertino based tech giant tries to stifle growing competition from rival smartphone companies including South Korea’s Samsung.

As it was earlier reported, Apple has already finalized plans for a new budget iPhone model.

It is now being reported that Apple could price the low-end models at anywhere between $149 and $99 per unit.

Quoting people familiar with the plans a Bloomberg,  report says that Apple has been working on the lower-end phone since February 2011. The phone could be released not just in China and other developing countries but in the United States as well.

“Apple has spoken to at least one of the top US wireless carriers about its plans,” the report added.

Samsung has more than two dozen different models of smartphones to cater to specific users with a price range starting from Dh600 to Samsung Galaxy S3 that is currently selling for Dh2300 in the UAE. In comparison the iPhone5 is priced at Dh2,599.

The initial reports of Apple launching a budget version of the iPhone emerged a few weeks ago and at that time analysts had predicted that Apple could price the budget version of the iPhone anywhere between $200 (Dh734) to $250 (Dh917).

While the features of the budget version will be definitely scaled down compared to its latest model, the iPhone5, reports have indicated that it would however sport a larger five inch screen compared to the iPhone5’s 4-inch display. Reports also indicate that the budget iPhone could be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets, including the dual-core MSM8960 and the quad-core APQ8064, which it launched recently for entry-level to mid-range smartphones.

Apple which launched its cheaper and smaller version of its iPad through the mini is now planning to replicate the model with iPhone as well.

Apple launched the iPad mini last year in a similar attempt to take on rival manufactures who were offering cheaper tablets at less than half the price of the high end Retina Display iPads. While the 16GB iPad with retina display is priced at Dh1999 apple is selling the 16Gb iPad mini for Dh1299.

iPad mini meanwhile has already sold about 10 million units during the last quarter and continues to be high in demand.

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