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Cape Town - Apple is tempting South Africans with an iPhone at lower cost.
Official South African Apple distributor Core Group announced on Monday that it is offering the iPhone 4S for R2 999.
The older model iPhone has 8GB of memory, has been refurbished and comes with a one year Apple warranty. The 4S in particular, was mired in controversy after it went on sale for a so-called "grip of death".
Apple subsequently issued free covers that mitigated against the device dropping signal when held in a particular way.
The offer comes at a time when emerging markets like SA have shown an appetite for lower cost devices, while at the same time, exposure to pop culture makes the Apple brand popular among young people.
According to the 2015 Student Tech Survey by World Wide Worx and Student Brands - with the support of Standard Bank - around 50% of students said they would buy an iPhone if cost was not an issue, followed by Samsung (29%) and Sony (9%).
Record sales
But iPhones generally command premium pricing and limited widespread adoption, especially in emerging markets.
"There is a vast affordability gap between what students wish they could get and what they intend to get," said Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of technology market research organisation World Wide Worx.
Research company Gartner reported that Apple's record fourth quarter in 2014 saw the California company beat rival Samsung in the smartphone race.
"With Apple dominating the premium phone market and the Chinese vendors increasingly offering quality hardware at lower prices, it is through a solid ecosystem of apps, content and services unique to Samsung devices that Samsung can secure more loyalty and longer-term differentiation at the high end of the market," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.
Apple sold a record number of iPhones in the last quarter of 2014. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)
Apple sold 74.8 million iPhones in the quarter versus Samsung's 73 million, pushing its market share to 20.4% for the quarter.
For the year though, Samsung remains dominant with a market share of 24.7%, having sold 307.597 million units versus Apple's sales of 191.426 million (market share of 15.4%).
But third place in the smartphone market Lenovo has showed that people in emerging markets such as China are increasingly turning to devices that are lower in cost.
Competition
"Chinese vendors are no longer followers." said Cozza. "They are producing higher quality devices with appealing new hardware features that can rival the more established players in the mobile phone market."
Lenovo reached a market share of 6.6%, growing at 47.6 year on year. Those numbers indicate that the brand is making serious inroads where people want smartphones at a lower price.
Core Group may not have its own way selling a refurbished iPhone.
The Orange online store offers a refurbished iPhone 4S 16GB for R2 855, the 5 32GB for R4 760 and the 5c 16GB for R4 315. The company notes, though, that the devices are stocked in its European warehouse and come with a one year warranty.
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