Finance Matters

Archive for July 13th, 2010

How is Apple going to appease the iPhone 4 owners who are experiencing antenna issues?

It’s not going to give away its “bumper” cases for free, as some have suggested.

Why not?

Because the whole point of the bumpers is that they are not free.

For a little piece of rubber, at $29, they are amusingly expensive — a great little profit center for Apple. That’s why so much space in Apple’s retail stores is devoted to Apple-made and third-party iPhone and iPad cases; because they’re expensive. (Sure, it helps that they protect your phone, too. And that they fix the antenna problem. But that’s just gravy.)

There’s no way Apple is going to throw all of that profit away just because the company is getting some bad press — which will blow over — about the iPhone 4′s signal issues.

There are no huge lines of people returning iPhones because of the antenna issue. So Apple has no need to bribe people with free bumpers.

More likely: Apple may reduce the price of bumpers down to $15 or so, which is cheap enough that people won’t think twice about buying one, but still probably expensive enough to be significantly profitable.

But not free, which is a HUGE new can of worms to open. (Also, this is Apple. When is the last time it gave anything away for free, except the Apple logo stickers that come with its products?)

Earlier: Sorry, But This Whole iPhone 4 Antenna Thing Is A Non-Issue And Will Blow Over

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See Also:

• Sorry, But This Whole iPhone 4 Antenna Thing Is A Non-Issue And Will Blow Over
• The Next 5 Apple Gadgets To Waste Your Time Obsessing About
• 10 Things We Love And Hate About The iPhone 4

Thank you Intel, Expeditors, and Yum Brands. The markets continue to rally after hours.

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Eurozone debt: Throwing good money after bad?

European equities markets were higher Tuesday, helped by results from US aluminium producer Alcoa (NYSE: AA), which reported that profits exceeded expectations in the first quarter and on a forecast from BMW that profits will be up this year, with gains coming even though a German survey of investor and analyst expectations fell more than [...]

Credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Service has today cut Portugal’s debt rating by two notches, sending the euro down against the dollar and the pound.
Moody’s downgraded Portugal’s rating by two notches to A1, citing weak growth and suggesting it may need fresh austerity measures next year to reach fiscal targets.
However, in a statement, Portugal’s finance [...]