Apple Cuts Price of the iPhone 5s by Almost Half in India

As it looks to find a better foothold in the Indian smartphone market, Apple today reduced the price of the bestselling iPhone 5s in the country by nearly half of what it sold for in September (via CNET).

Officially, the 2013 iPhone has been reduced from 44,500 Rupees ($665) to 24,999 Rupees ($370) in an effort by Apple to make the two-year-old smartphone more attractive to users in India, where smartphone competition is normally priced below $300.

India is currently the third biggest smartphone market in the world, following China and the United States. Although Apple has a large presence in the latter two countries, it currently doesn't even crack the top five list of smartphone manufacturers in India.

"To drive volume [in India], Apple will need to keep focus on older iPhone generations," IDC's Kiranjeet Kaur said, explaining that older generations will cater to the country's large midrange smartphone market. Kaur added that there's a "limited" amount of penetration the company can achieve by exclusively selling in the premium price segment.

Besides the premium pricing of the company's products, multiple factors have prevented Apple from having the kind of success it experiences in some other regions, including its strict real estate investment laws barring Apple from building traditional brick-and-mortar stores in the country. High import taxes applied to products not manufactured in the country's borders also hinders Apple's growth, and allows the market leader Samsung to flourish due to its India-based smartphone manufacturing plants.