Did Apple's iPhone 5C UK Price Drop Confirm It Flopped?

The iPhone 5C has been

since the day it arrived last September. Only one carrier -- Virgin Mobile, a pay-as-you-go provider --

from its release. Now

(NASDAQ:

) has released a

of the iPhone 5C in select markets. The new model has reduced storage (8GB vs. 16GB) and sells for roughly $70 less than the original. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves told Benzinga that this announcement was a "bit of a surprise." "[But] I don't think it's necessarily an indication that the iPhone 5C has been selling bad," he said. "We know that [and] they know that, relative to their expectations, it has been pretty inline with what typical mid-range iPhones sell. It just didn't sell more."

Hargreaves believes that Apple released a cheaper iPhone 5C to test the elasticity (how much sales increase/decrease) in those markets. Will consumers be persuaded by the iPhone 5C, which is somewhat of a

phone, or would they prefer a two-year-old handset in the same price range? Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research, was much less optimistic. He said that this was a "normal" and "ordinary" move for a company that is anything but ordinary. "Apple is an exceptional and exclusive company," he said before reiterating his belief that CEO Tim Cook

.

Speaking of replacements, Apple also announced that it has replaced the three-year-old iPad 2 with the 18-month-old iPad 4. The change means that consumers can now purchase the fourth-generation model (which includes a Retina Display) for $399. Hargreaves said that the move was "not a huge surprise." "iPad 2 is pretty old and there's efficiencies to be gained by having things produced on more similar platforms," he added. Apple has yet to confirm or deny the existence of a 12- or 13-inch iPad, however. Disclosure: