Walmart Discounts Apple iPhone 5s, 5c Price Starting at $29 With Contract

Apple may be looking to unload iPhone 5s/5c stock in the months leading up to the iPhone 6 release. Walmart’s new aggressive price discounts kicked in Friday morning, lowering the iPhone 5s price from $199 to $99, and the iPhone 5c from $99 to $29.

The new price structure comes just days after Costco wholesalers started selling Apple products again, offering even more aggressive discounts on the smartphones. Limited to the 16GB iPhone 5s, Costco is currently selling the iOS device at a surprisingly low $78. Despite Costco’s prices being lower than Walmart’s, the wholesaler is said to have limited supply, while Walmart’s pricing is supposedly permanent.

As with almost every discounted phone, Walmart’s prices come with a subsidized two-year commitment with a chosen carrier. AT&T and Verizon offer subsidized prices at their corporate stores; however, they are $100 more than Walmart’s prices.

This is not the first time that the nationwide chain has offered discounts on Apple products. Last holiday season, Walmart offered similar discounts on the iPhone 5s/5c, lowering the price to $27 on the 5c and $127 for the iPhone 5s.

The new prices at Walmart come as Apple enters its fourth quarter, which has had lower sales than at other parts of the year as customers hold out for the next model before upgrading. The iPhone 6 is speculated to launch in September, meaning that customers who are in need of a new smartphone and want the iPhone have two and a half months to upgrade before the 6 debuts.

The iPhone 6 is said to be larger than the current iPhone 5s, coming in two different sizes. The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 is almost guaranteed to launch Sept. 19, while the larger 5.5-inch version is rumored to launch anywhere between September and spring of 2015.

Apple’s iPhone 6 is said to run on a 2.6GHz A8 chip, the next version of Apple’s mobile processors, and use iOS 8, which features a bevy of improvements, including customizable keyboards and the new health- and-fitness app called Health.