Apple’s Ex-CEO Says Apple Should “Adapt” and Make Cheaper iPhone
Apple’s Ex-CEO Says Apple Should “Adapt” and Make Cheaper iPhone by UCStrategies Staff
John Sculley, former CEO at Apple Inc., remarked in an interview with Bloomberg Television that Apple should revamp its supply chain in order to meet the demand for affordable smartphones prevalent in emerging markets such as India.
“Apple needs to adapt to a very different world,” said John Sculley. “As we go from $500 smartphones to even as low, for some companies, as $100 for a smartphone, you’ve got to dramatically rethink the supply chain and how you can make these products and do it profitably.”
Sculley’s statement came in light of Apple’s market share price plunging below $500 per share, a consequence of Wall Street Journal’s controversial account claiming that Apple, because of low demand for the iPhone 5, had halved its corresponding component orders for the said smartphone. Macworld’s Karen Haslam mentioned that “there may have been some stock manipulation.”
Sculley pointed out that there is “nothing wrong” with the latest iPhone, and that there is another factor that may have led to the decreasing demand for iPhone 5 – that of the growing popularity of products manufactured by Apple’s competitors like Samsung.
“Samsung is an extraordinarily good competitor,” explained Sculley. “The differentiation between a Samsung Galaxy and an iPhone 5 is not as great as we used to see.”
Recent reports surmise that the cheaper iPhone model, often nicknamed as “iPhone mini,” may have see-through plastic in lieu of the traditional glass or aluminum, and that the said plastic body is likely to be produced by an electronic manufacturing service provider based in the U.S.
Meanwhile, in a Reuters report, Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple Inc., rejected the idea of Apple releasing a cheaper version of iPhone.
“Some manufacturers use cheap smartphones to replace feature phones, but this is not Apple’s product development direction,” said Schiller, according to a Google Translate transcript of his interview with Shanghai Evening News. “We are not like other companies, launching multiple products in one breath, then pinning their hopes on a product to get the favor of consumers.”
Reuters later withdrew the reported denial by Phil Schiller, fueling speculation that a cheaper iPhone may be released this year. (KOM) Link. Link.