The $550 iPhone 5C makes perfect sense

“Looking again at that chart, and with the realities of these three markets in mind, it’s not so much that the iPhone has saturated the American-style and European-style markets, and ought to focus on the Asian-style one; rather, the iPhone has saturated the high end in all three markets the high end just varies in accessibility ($200 for American-style, $650 for Asian-style). And, if you accept that the iPhone is in roughly the same competitive position in all three markets that the difference in market share is due to inherent structure of the market then it’s not at all obvious Apple should focus on the SE Asia-style market. In fact, it’s obvious they shouldn’t.”

A characteristically fascinating article by Ben Thompson explaining the logic behind Apple’s refusal to enter the low-end market as many predicted it would with a C model, and why Apple chose to position the 5C where it did in the iPhone line. His work is quickly becoming some of my favorite writing to read, alongside that of Horace Dediu and Benedict Evans.