trader_4 wrote:

Plenty of phones are bought directly by end-users.

Define plenty.

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Apple Wants to Sell More iPhones Through Its Own Stores — But Can It?
July 17, 2013

Apple sells a lot of iPhones through its retail stores — but not nearly
as many as it would like. Indeed, at a recent gathering of Apple Store
leaders, sources said CEO Tim Cook was dismayed that only 20 percent of
all iPhones are sold through Apple Stores, and that he’d like to see
that number rise in the months ahead.

The biggest and most obvious constraint on such an effort is the size of
Apple’s retail operations. In the U.S., for example, Apple has about 250
retail locations — most, if not all, very well-trafficked. But its
carrier partners together have about 9,000, according to CIRP. Add to
that 1,000 or so Best Buy stores, and a bunch of other retail outlets
like RadioShack, and Apple’s plan to claim iPhone sa

http://allthingsd.com/20130717/apple...es-but-can-it/
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I'm assuing that when you buy a phone at an istore, you are 100% buying
the phone in a single transaction, vs when you "obtain" a phone through
a cellular provider you are paying for it $20 a month for 2 years as
part of your cellular service.

I know that one factor is cost - and many people simply can't afford to
pay $500 in one shot up front for a phone. Strange that the article
doesn't mention that.

By far the largest customers of the cell phone manufacturers are
the carriers. Most consumers get their phones from a carrier or
a channel that sells a particular carrier's cell phones.

I'm not expecting that a tv tuner would go into ALL phones made by any
given manufacturer.

I'm wondering why a few models or even just one model wouldn't have a
built-in tuner as an advanced feature, meant to give a marketing
advantage for those people that do purchase their phones outright before
signing up for a plan.