Apple should stop pretending to be an otherworldly company and discount iPhone 16 already

Every major retailer, from Samsung to Google, offers discounts or deals on their new devices. And then, there is Apple. This strategy of pretending to be too special to go for marketing tools worked in the past, but it's no longer good enough.

No lessons learned last year in China

Sometimes, the simplest of solutions work the best. Apple doesn't necessarily need the snazzy new Camera Control button or overemphasise the AI capabilities of the iPhone 16 to make iPhones cool again. It needs to make its phones competitive with other best phones of 2024. A simple discount will do the trick and Apple knows that all too well.

After all, that's what retailers in China and Apple itself did in the country to resurrect sales and was rewarded with an almost instant 12 percent jump in sales in one of its most important markets.

What's stopping Apple from discounting the iPhone 16?

Apple has this habit of putting its own spin on things and expecting buyers to treat features that have existed for years as new and innovative. Take Apple Intelligence, the company's lineup of AI features, as an example.

AI functionalities have been available on Android phones for more than a year and Apple Intelligence doesn't have the wow factor it may have had last year. On top of that, the new phones will ship without Apple Intelligence, with the first few features slated to arrive next month.

Early data shows that demand for the iPhone 16 series is sluggish, with first-weekend sales down 12 percent year-over-year. While this alone cannot be taken as a sign that the iPhone 16isn't doing as well as the iPhone 15, which didn't perform particularly well itself, it's clear that new iPhones aren't as buzzworthy as they once were.

In August, Apple was overtaken by Xiaomi as the second-largest smartphone seller in the world. Though Apple is likely to snatch the spot back this month, the fall from the second to the third spot should be enough to send alarm bells ringing. It's not every year that we see Apple's sales plunge low enough to make it lose the second place a month before new iPhones are announced.

Merchants in China have taken things into their own hands and are already offering a discount of as much as 11 percent on the iPhone 16. The phones are also cheaper than the iPhone 15 in India and Australia due to some macroeconomic factors.