iPhone 5C's price cut to $50 at Best Buy through Monday just two weeks after launch
Best Buy Drops the Price of iPhone 5c to $50 … Just two weeks after hitting the market, Best Buy will begin offering a discount on Apple's iPhone 5c. From today, Oct. 3, to Monday, Oct. 7, the iPhone 5c will be available for $50.
Context & Ripple Effects
The iPhone 5c was pitched as Apple's mid-tier play — five colored plastic backs starting at $99 on contract when it was announced in September, with pre-orders opening September 13. Two weeks into shelf life, Best Buy has knocked $49 off that price for a four-day window running October 3–7.
The move lands in a familiar channel pattern: back in 2012, regional U.S. carriers discounted the iPhone 5 at launch, and Best Buy itself was selling cheaper iPhones as far back as 2009. What makes this round notable is how fast it escalated — ABC News reports Walmart answered within days at $45 — and AppleInsider's same-week reporting that the 5s still tops sales charts at the big four carriers with the 5c close behind, suggesting this is retailers fighting for upgrade traffic rather than clearing unwanted inventory.
First-order effects
- Best Buy converts the 5c into a four-day traffic driver at $50, accepting a thinner handset margin to pull upgrade buyers into stores during the peak holiday-quarter ramp.
- Apple's carefully set $99 price point for the 5c is now effectively dead at street level — Walmart's $45 match means any shopper checking two ads sees a sub-$100 phone priced near half its launch tag.
Second-order effects
- Every big-box and regional chain carrying the 5c is forced to match or differentiate within days, turning a premium-branded launch into a price-matching contest between retailers rather than a controlled Apple-led rollout.
- Carrier partners face pressure as subsidized handset economics migrate to retail promotions — the effective subsidy per phone rises without Apple or the carriers formally moving pricing, squeezing dealer margins across the channel.
Third-order effects
- If every mid-cycle iPhone now gets discounted within weeks of launch, the credibility of Apple's tiered pricing erodes — consumers learn to wait out the sticker price, which undermines the very 'affordable iPhone' positioning the 5c was built to deliver.
- Big-box retailers consolidate their role as the de facto price-setters for smartphones, with launch-day MSRPs becoming marketing anchors rather than real transaction prices.
The trend: Smartphone retail is splitting into a two-track market where manufacturers defend launch prices while big-box chains treat carrier-subsidized handsets as disposable loss leaders, resetting street prices within weeks of release.