HTC vs i-mate: HTC Offers Lower Price on the Star Trek; Is this a New Strategy?

[Kris Kumar]

http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/kris-nov2006-htcpricesdown.jpg

Recently while shopping for my T-Mobile Dash, I was checking out the MobilePlanet Web site and was amazed to find the Qtek 8500 selling for more than $100 less than the i-mate Smartflip. 8O Qtek 8500 was priced at $359.95 and the i-mate Smartflip was listed at $474.95. Why does this surprise me? Because these two Smartphones are the same, they both are manufactured by HTC. Qtek is an HTC owned company and by eliminating the middle man, HTC has managed to offer the Smartphone at a lower price. Or is it because HTC is getting into a pricing war with i-mate? What are your thoughts?

[kugeln]

If you go through and look at the other prices for similar HTC/Qtek/I-Mate/Dopod/whatever else you want to call it, Expansys (now MobilePlanet in the US) has always seemed to have higher prices on the different brands.

They even sometimes have dramatic price differences between the same exact brand and model of phone in different flavors (lock status, language packs, etc.) which is all easily modifiable by anyone (at least on the older phones).

Then go check out the prices on the actual Expansys UK site and compare them to the Mobileplanet site... (converting the currency appropriately, of course) The Mobileplanet prices are usually inexplicably higher than the Expansys prices, even with international shipping added.

[subzerohf]

I noticed the price difference a couple of weeks ago. Notice that the bluetooth logo is showing on the I-Mate picture but not on the Qtek one? May be they are trying to fool people into paying the higher priced I-mate with it.

BTW, I swear I saw the price on the Samsung 320N drop by almost $100 one Friday night, but came back to where it is now one day later. I so regret for not snapping it right away. :cry:

[Janak Parekh]

If you go through and look at the other prices for similar HTC/Qtek/I-Mate/Dopod/whatever else you want to call it, Expansys (now MobilePlanet in the US) has always seemed to have higher prices on the different brands.
Exactly. Expansys has been famous for having sometimes arbitrary, inexplicable pricing. I think this is yet another example of this and that there isn't any deeper meaning.

--janak

[MitchellO]

Yeah imate has always had a higher price than Qtek from what I recall. Similarly, I always found O2's XDA line to be more expensive than the imate counterparts.

[Kris Kumar]

Hmm, I wasn't aware of MobilePlanet/eXpansys' crazy pricing strategy. I thought it was a pricing war and HTC had a hand in it. :? :oops:

Here's to hopes that HTC is planning a pricing war. Which it can easily do.

I was trying to find similar devices, but now that i-mate and HTC have split up, I couldn't find any other devices that were being sold under HTC and i-mate branding. Are you aware any such devices?

[LarryKeith]

I have noticed that MobilePlanet will change their prices at different times. I have watched the price of the i-mate SPL phone go from $399 to $404 back down to $399. It's at $424 now. I wonder what price it will be tomorrow.

[Mike Temporale]

It's nice to see that they can adjust the prices on an almost daily basis. :roll:

[Kris Kumar]

It's nice to see that they can adjust the prices on an almost daily basis. :roll:

More over airlines...here comes MobilePlanet. :rotfl:

[MitchellO]

It's nice to see that they can adjust the prices on an almost daily basis. :roll:

Its like petrol prices :D