Wal-Mart cuts price of iPhone 4 to $147 in stores
Wal-Mart has lowered the price on Apple's iPhone 4 to $147 in its brick-and-mortar stores across the country for a limited time.
The price reduction, which began Monday, is for the 16GB iPhone 4 and requires a two-year contract, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said. It applies to both the AT&T and Verizon models.
The promotion is set to end July 1, and the 16GB iPhone 4 will go back to selling for $199, the spokeswoman said. Apple's 32GB iPhones, which sell for $299, are not included in the offer.
When asked why Wal-Mart was offering the iPhone 4 promotion, Tara Raddohl, another spokeswoman for the retailer, said in an email that it was an example of Wal-Mart regularly offering low prices "on the broadest assortment of products."
Raddohl said the AT&T version of the iPhone 4 is sold in more than 2,200 Wal-Mart stores and the Verizon version is sold in more than 600 stores. "Wal-Mart is expanding that offering to additional stores in the coming weeks," and the price cut is offered in any Wal-Mart store that sells iPhones, she said. The offer won't be available on Wal-Mart's website, she said.
Also on Monday, Apple announced a new version of its mobile operating system, iOS 5, and a new iCloud service, which syncs calendars, contacts and music to remote servers -- known as "the cloud" -- so such media doesn't have to be stored on devices.
Apple, which has introduced a new version of its iPhone each June for the last four years, is not expected to introduce a new iPhone this month. Speculation largely pegs the next iPhone to arrive this fall. When the newer version comes out, the iPhone 4's price probably will fall permanently.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: Apple iPhone 4 units, arranged for a photograph. Credit: Chris Goodney / Bloomberg
