Wireless at Walmart: The iPhone’s potential impact

Apple creating a stripped-down $99 iPhone for Walmart would be more than just counter to the way that technology products, particularly cell phones, usually proceed in the market. It would be an unprecedented move for modern-day Apple, which has avoided retailer-exclusive SKUs except those in its own Apple Store (the Project Red iPod) and has historically striven for simplicity in its product line. Particularly with the iPhone, Apple has been so focused on preserving the level of user experience that it went weeks with low or no inventory of the original iPhone model leading up to the launch of the iPhone 3G.

There’s little doubt as to why Walmart would want to carry the 3G iPhone. NPD tracked the device as the best-selling handset in the U.S. in Q3, surpassing the Motorola RAZR in a dramatic consumer embrace of Web-savvy smartphones. Recent smartphones such as the T-Mobile G1 and Blackberry Storm already represent the second wave of would-be “iPhone killers” following advanced touchscreen feature phones that appeared earlier in the year.

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