Analyst says Apple will pocket an extra $3 billion / €2.46 billion in 2015 for refusing to upgrade minimum-tier to 32GB

Dec 23, 2014 13:28 GMT  ·  By

There’s a consensus among analysts that Apple is not throwing straight dice when it comes to the storage options associated with its various iDevices. According to a recent analysis, the Cupertino giant will stash $3 billion (€2.46 billion) in extra profits this year, all thanks to the 16GB option.

As much as I feel that people hardly realize how much storage they’re wasting on duplicate photos, broken recordings, and useless apps, I have to agree with analyst Neil Cybart when he says that “Apple's near-term motive behind keeping the 16GB capacity option is pretty clear: get people to buy the 64GB option.”

It’s really not that black & white, but I won’t start to handpick his observations for fear of pasting the entire article. It’s a good read, though it might overlook aspects that can chip away at the extra profits cited in there, such as R&D, manufacturing, shipping, marketing, licensing, and other stuff typically associated with a hardware product but not necessarily included in the bill of materials.

However, nothing excuses Apple for imprisoning customers in a device that requires almost half of its storage capacity to install new firmware (iOS 8).

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