Did Apple Retail Prices Get Too High in 2018? Consumers Say Yes.

Apple has for years been a premium brand that rarely, if ever discounted products. Every year, the company could raise prices on products, and consumers would not only happily pay, but stand in long lines for the privilege of doing so. From a report: So when Apple started putting misleading, but seemingly consumer-friendly posters in front of Apple Stores at the end of 2018 offering a new iPhone model for $300 off (with trade-in of your current phone), you know something different happened for the company this year. Consumers fought back. Many analysts have reported that in the wake of poorer-than-expected sales for this year's crop of iPhones, Apple cut back on production, including on the $1,100 iPhone XS Max, the $999 iPhone XS and the XR, the 'budget' model that replaced the previous entry-level new phone, the $349 SE. The price for the XR (the one Apple is hawking discounts for): $749.

'This should be a wakeup call for Apple,' says Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. 'They swung, and they really missed.' The prices on the new phones are 'far too high,' says Terry Walton, a tourist from Auckland, New Zealand. He has an iPhone 7 and didn't even consider any of the X-series iPhones because it still works just fine. Upgrading 'didn't enter my mind at all,' he says. It wasn't just iPhones that got price hikes. Apple also upped the cost of the top-of-the-line iPad to $1,000 as well (or over $2,800 for a loaded model) and added $300 to the cost of the Mac Mini and new MacBook Air computers.

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