Apple denies iPhone price hike in India

Apple, the maker of upmarket iPhone, has denied news reports of  the company raising prices in India, in order to make up for poor sales of its latest iPhone SE. Reports had quoted unnamed sources as stating that iPhone prices have been be marked up by 29 per cent.

Recent reports citing Apple executives said stocks of the iPhone SE models were kept in the lower numbers, which suggested that the company expected the phone not to be widely received.
 
Reports also suggested, ''a strategy is being worked out'' by Apple in order to effectively push sales of the device.

A recent report in The Times of India said the decision has been taken after Apple executives recently held a meeting with major distributors in India regarding the reception of the iPhone SE.

Reports also stated that price of older iPhone 6 model has been revised to Rs40,000 against Rs31,000 earlier and that of the 6S to Rs48,000 against Rs40,500 earlier.

This, according to the reports, has been done by Apple, or its dealers to save the overpriced iPhone SE from the competition from other iPhones in India.

The move comes at the time when the newly launched Apple iPhone SE is being criticised for being overpriced. Ever since the launch earlier this month, the iPhone SE got poor response and Apple only managed to sell a few thousand units, ET reported. Talking about the price hike, Apple iPhone 6 has steeply shot up by 29 per cent.

Dealers have raised prices of the older iPhones in India the last one week, reportedly because people are buying the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6S that are comparatively better priced than the recently-launched iPhone SE.

Apple has priced the iPhone SE base 16GB variant at Rs39,000 in India. But until last week the iPhone 6 16GB could be purchased for as low as Rs31,000 while the current-generation iPhone 6S (base model) was selling for around Rs40,500.

"After the revision, iPhone 6 costs Rs40,000 and 6S comes for Rs48,000. We are trying to build a healthy buffer," the report quoted source as saying.

"It was felt that SE, which was criticised for having a 'high price tag', will not be able to see much traction if prices of bigger-sized iPhone 6 and 6S devices are not corrected. So, the decision was taken to revise the price upwards," the report quotes a source as saying.

Retailers seem to have realised that given that there is an exclusive market for the iPhones, the best way to save the iPhone SE and its valuation was to hike prices across iPhone models, the reports point out.

Apple managed to sell only a few thousand units of the SE in India, possibly due to its high pricing, say reports.

Apple, however, denied raising the prices of the iPhones in India. The company says the prices remain what they were during the launch of these iPhones. But the company did not deny the possibility of a price correction (See: Prices of older iPhone models hiked by 29% to save Apple SE). http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_a/Apple/20160423_models.html

The older iPhones might have been selling at significantly lower than their MRPs. It is possible that their prices are now closer to MRPs, with reduced discount, according to Apple.