TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Horace Dediu shows why the iPhone needs to move into different price-points:

The first chart shows the global split between pre-/post-paid subscribers as of 2010. Roughly 1.5 billion are post-paid and 3.7 billion are pre-paid. That means that nearly 70% of the world is not being addressed by the iPhone as it currently stands. Put another way, a shift in positioning might result in a 250% increase in addressable market.

That also shows just how early in the game it is. Out of 5.2 billion cell phone subscribers, only 1.5 billion—less than 30 percent—are being heavily targeted for smartphone sales. And that’s now, in 2011; imagine what the market will be like in a decade as more people in China, India and the developing world acquire middle class-like incomes.

That’s why Apple has no choice but to move toward more affordable iPhone models. The mobile market is going to look nothing like it does right now in a decade, and Apple needs to succeed in developing world markets to be around.