Analysts predict that sometime in 2013, one of the existing iPhone models will hit an all-time low of $200 – this is unsubsidized and directly from Apple.
Analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray (via Apple Insider) made the prediction that an iPhone would reach the price of $200 sometimes in 2013, competing with the lowest costing 8GB iPhone 3GS that is currently on sale. According to Muster, reducing the price of an iPhone to $200 would be “important” for Apple, considering the company’s market share is weakest in the emerging low-cost market that Android devices currently dominate.
If Apple can lower the price on an iPhone, Munster sees Apple’s global smartphone share growing from 20 percent currently, to 32 percent in 2015. The only negative effect that such a reduction in price could bring about is a drop in the average value of the iPhone, which has been maintained at $641 since the launch of the iPhone 3G in June of 2008.