Your holiday shopping is going to get exciting this year. With new smartphone launches to generous price cuts on older phones, mobile shoppers can now get best deals for their long-awaited upgrades. In an unusual move, Apple just dropped the price of its once-best selling iPhone 5S in India to its lowest price point ever.

Interested buyers can purchase an iPhone 5S 16GB variant for Rs. 24,999, which is a massive drop in price from Rs. 44,500 in September. But if you are an online shopper, the deal gets better and better.

Flipkart is offering iPhone 5S 16GB space grey variant for Rs. 21,945 while Amazon India is offering the same model for Rs. 22,300. If you choose a different colour or a higher storage option, the price of the handset goes up.

Despite being two generations old, iPhone 5S is one of the best selling models in Apple's smartphone portfolio in India. According to a report from the The Times of India, iPhone 5S accounts for nearly 50 percent of the total iPhone sales in the country. Apple's decision to drop the price of its best selling model in India comes as a way to double the sales in the most important sales period of the year.

With such low price, Apple iPhone 5S is poised to take on several mid-range smartphones and some flagships too such as Nexus 6. The new price drop also makes iPhone 5S one of the cheapest compared to other countries, despite depreciating rupee and higher import taxes.

"The $250-400 (Rs 16,000-Rs 27,000) price band is where Apple wants to focus its energies in India since they want to lock in more consumers into their eco-system which would build up a base for upgradation when newer iPhones are launched," TOI quoted Tarun Pathak, a senior telecom analyst at Counterpoint Research, as saying.

Recently, Apple also slashed the price of its latest flagship iPhone 6S in India, which was surprising considering the new handsets were launched a little over two months ago. Online retailers such as Flipkart are selling the iPhone 6S for Rs. 49,499. The iPhone 6S Plus also received a price cut of Rs. 10,000 and are selling for Rs. 62,000.