Best Buy Drops iPhone 5C Price To $50

Best Buy BBY will sell Apple's AAPL iPhone 5C for $50 with a contract. According to ABC News, the $49 price reduction runs through Monday, October 7. This massive discount is considerably larger than the permanent price cut offered by Wal-Mart WMT and T-Mobile TMUS. Before the iPhone 5C was released on September 20, Wal-Mart announced that it would sell the device for $79 with a contract. This represented a $20 savings over the MSRP. Not to be outdone, T-Mobile dropped the price of its contract-free iPhone 5C to $528 -- a $21 savings. Unlike Wal-Mart and Best Buy, T-Mobile customers can purchase the iPhone 5C online. Wal-Mart's website simply directs customers to their nearest store, while BestBuy.com warns that the device is not available for shipping. Thus far, Best Buy has not updated its website to reflect the price reduction. Related: Microsoft Might Pay $350 For Your Apple iPhone Or iPad Slow Sales Or No Sales? On Friday, September 13 (one week before the new iPhones were released), Apple launched a pre-order campaign exclusively for the iPhone 5C. In North America, the company did not take any pre-orders for the iPhone 5S. On Monday, September 16, Apple surprised many tech reporters when the company remained silent about the iPhone 5C pre-sale numbers. Apple historically uses the Monday following its pre-sale campaign to brag about the millions of phones it has sold before the products are even released. It said nothing about how the iPhone 5C was performing. In fact, Apple stayed silent until September 23 -- the Monday after the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C went on sale -- before announcing any sales number. Instead of dividing new iPhone sales into two categories, Apple combined the sales data of all iPhones and announced that it sold nine million units. When the new iPhones were released, Benzinga surveyed a local Apple Store and could not find a single customer who came to purchase the iPhone 5C. Those who waited in line that morning only wanted an iPhone 5S. Still In Stock A search of Best Buy's online inventory indicates that the iPhone 5C is in stock at several of the retailer's locations throughout New York and California. Meanwhile, the "check shipping and availability" function of BestBuy.com seems to have been disabled for the iPhone 5S, which the retailer warns is only available in stores. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report. Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ