Google taking a huge price hit on Nexus 4?
Google appears to be subsidising the price of the
Google Nexus 4 smartphone by around £240 in an attempt to grab more of a market share for its Android OS.
The
Google Nexus 4, made by LG, goes on sale in the UK on 13th November and
will cost as little as £239 SIM-free from Google’s Play store. As many
have said already, this is a surprisingly low price for a smartphone
that offers what the Nexus 4 does: a quad-core Qualcomm S4 Pro
processor, 2GB of RAM, 8MP main camera, NFC and a 4.7-inch 1280 x 768
IPS screen. These sort of specifications would normally be on a phone
priced more closely to £500.
And indeed, it seems that non-Google retailers could be asking for that much when they start selling the Nexus 4. According to
The Next Web,
Spanish retailer Phone House will not be selling the handset because LG
wants it to do so for €599 (around £480). The Phone House doesn’t see
the point, as buyers will likely get the Nexus 4 direct from Google for
around half that price.
UK retailers are yet to reveal SIM-free
costs for the Google Nexus 4, but Carphone Warehouse has the phone
available for free with contracts from £31 a month.
Google
appears to be subsidising the Nexus 4 so heavily in order to make
Android even more popular. After all, a phone as powerful as most other
companies’ flagship devices (save perhaps for the lack of 4G LTE) for
around half the price will prove undeniably tempting to consumers
looking for their next handset.