Apple has increased its carrier subsidies in Japan to effectively drop the price of the iPhone XR, 9to5Mac reports. Japanese carrier NTT Docomo is now offering the iPhone XR on a 24-month contract for approximately $100 less than the original price — a move that is widely believed to have been authorized by Apple due to lower than anticipated demand for the new model in that country.
While Apple’s iPhone still dominates the smartphone market in general, the iPhone XR does not seem to have been the runaway hit that Apple expected — Japanese customers have instead been flocking toward last year’s iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus models, resulting in lower sales of both the iPhone XR and iPhone XS. While NTT Docomo is the only carrier to be offering the reduced price thus far, it is expected that other Japanese carriers will soon follow suit.
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