This Week Only: Best Buy Offers Free iPhone 5

June 21, 2013 by Paul Ausick

BestBuy storefront OKFollowing up on its one-day iPhone trade-in day earlier this month, Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has now extended the offer for nine days, from today through June 29. Customers will receive a $150 trade-in credit for a working iPhone 4 or 4S in trade on a new iPhone 5 with a sticker price of $149.99. That works out to “free” for those customers who meet the other requirements of the offer.

The June 1 iPhone trade-in deal gave Best Buy its best day ever for a trade-in program that the store has offered for the past four years. Best Buy also is offering the iPhone 5 from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) at $50 off for the entire month of June.

The fly in the ointment is that Apple itself is considering a trade-in program for its iPhones, although it is hardly likely to give them away as Best Buy is now doing. Apple’s likely goal is to maintain loyalty to the company’s premier product. Best Buy’s goal is not quite as clear because any profits from the trade-in go to the wireless carriers.

Maybe the folks at Best Buy think that traffic will help solve some of the company’s problems. Good luck with that.

Shares of have more than doubled since the beginning of the year and posted a new 52-week high earlier this week. The stock is trading down about 0.1% at noon today, in a 52-week range of $11.20 to $28.37.

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