Apple's iPhone

Economic
'When Apple's IPhone first went on sale in Europe six months ago, hopes were high that the device would be just as big a hit is it had been in the U.S. But analysts are now raising concerns that the iPhone may not translate as well overseas, with sales sluggish in Europe because of the device's high price and strong competition from Nokia and others'
Jennifer L.Schenker 'the iPhone in Europe: Lost in Translation',
The plummeting economy persuaded Apple to decrease the price of it's product as global recession was hitting it's peak by the time Apple launched it's product in the European market. The market although dense & vast still couldn't afford the price of the product so Apple had to work on the problem enumerate the decision factors and the best alternative it had according to the situation was lowering the price. This was the right step as buying power of the western world was getting affected by the economic downturn and job security was affected so a high price item would not have attracted the consumers.
The economic growth in south Asia has tempted Apple to enter the Asian market where India and China are home to about 25% of the world's population for firms to aim their products at together and emerging markets even during the economic downturn coupled with cheap labour and the lower costs in these countries are not to be ignored.
How Apple wants to be aware of the effects of this factor in the macro environment is that product exclusivity might not be favourable in the Asian markets as people will never want to and be able to pay the high costs of switching. It has worked in the western world but not in the Asian countries although in certain places people have a lot of spare cash yet the psyche of a credit shopping spree or big monthly mobile bills doesn't prevail. To meet those standards Apple will have to subsidise