The price of the 5C

Ben Evans on the one piece of information not leaked ahead of Apple’s announcement – the price of the 5C. He details out the careful balancing act that Apple must perform: price the phone at an aggressively low number and you’ll throw away profits in the US (because carrier subsidies shroud the real price). Price it too high, however, and you miss out on all the unsubsidized markets around the world where the phone will compete with far cheaper Android phones. Part of the huge complication as well is that ‘rest of the world’ includes China – a huge market that Apple undoubtedly would not enjoy seeing go entirely to Android.