Mumbai: The iPhone buzz may become more with this catchy device getting cheaper by more than 15 percent. As a measure to boost up the sales, the Apple may drop iPhone's price by at least Rs 5,000, says Anshul Gupta, principal analyst with Gartner.

Gupta said, "At current prices, we expect iPhone to sell primarily among those who cannot wait for Apple or the operators to cut prices," he said. "It will be a volumes game then for the operators to clear out their stocks before Apple announces a new version of iPhone." The current figure shows much lesser sales figure in India compared to the global figure. While in India it has sold only 5000 pieces, the worldwide figure goes up to million units. Even the most revered mobile service providers like Vodafone and Airtel, have no words to explain the lower sales. Moreover, a decline in the average revenue per user (ARPU) is viewed as says Girish Trivedi, deputy director (ICT Practice), Frost & Sullivan , "As service providers penetrate deeper into the country, getting new customers who don't spend more than $8-10 a month on their phone bills, they will rely on devices like iPhone to cushion their ARPUs in the urban areas."

In India, the 3G version of iPhone sells for more than triple its U.S. price tag. The eight-gigabyte model of the phone, which includes a built-in iPod and a desktop-class web browser, sells for Rs 31,000, while the 16GB version goes for Rs 36,100. Amid the confetti and cheerleaders at its launch on August 22, the price was perceived to be a discordant note.

One important point is the outrageous price tag of the 3G iPhone which is triple of the U.S. price. It is this that has limited the sales of the phone. The 1G iPhone devices are estimated to have a user base of around 30,000 but coming to 3G it can grow if the price is lowered. Airtel and Vodafone can between them theoretically carry it to almost 105.2 million subscribers. However, iPhone falls in the smart phone category, whose market is estimated at 10 million by 2010.

There are an estimated 30,000 users of iPhone (first generation devices) in India, and the operators are hoping to get past this number with iPhone 3G. However, the price tag has limited Apple to an extremely small portion of the 260 million mobile subscribers in India. The market expectations have grown bleak as a dealer points out, in Business Standard, "Earlier in July, I had delivered 15 iPhone 2G handsets (priced at Rs 22,000) to my customers from all over Maharashtra and in August I had bookings for almost 20 iPhone 3G of which 10 customers have already cancelled their bookings. The customers, are looking to buy from Airtel and Vodafone since the grey market price is only slightly lower." It is felt that the operators are engaging on some strategic plans to through exclusive data plans.