Although they introduced a gold version to maintain their market share as a premium product, the fact that they introduced 5C suggest Apple is trying to become a more affordable product. Although this may be commendable from an accounting perspective, it is a rather surprising move from a marketing point of view.

According to Ries and Trouts free product trap theorem, when a brand tries to hold on to multiple positions in a market, either its new product won’t do well or it will be at the expense of its old products. And although the fact that apple sold an estimated 9 million Iphone its opening weekend, the details tell a much different story.Out of the 9 million Iphones about 5-5.5 million were Iphone 5S while 3-3.5 million were Iphone 5 C’s.

Some can make the argument that Apple did the same thing with the Ipad mini and that seems to have worked. But the difference is that Apple advertised their product as the same thing just in a smaller size even producing the slogan “concentration and not reduction” of the full sized Ipad.

http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/ries-trout/positioning/

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