Rumors surrounding a cheaper Iphone from Apple are gaining ground this week after Chief Operation Officer, Tim Cook, announced that Apple didn’t want their products to be “just for the rich.”

Last month, rumors circulated that Steve Jobs was working on a potentially smaller and cheaper Iphone during his medical leave of absence. The New York Times shot down the reports saying that the company was not looking to offer a cheaper Iphone, but one that would be at a lower price point, says The Washington Post.

Now it’s being reported that Cook dropped hints about a cheaper Iphone at a meeting with Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi and VP of Online Services, Eddy Cue last week. Cook said that Apple was planning “clever things” to compete in the prepaid industry and that the company wasn’t ready to “cede any market,” according to AppleInsider.

Cook also made reference to China where Apple has had significant success in a short amount of time, and where it had “spent a lot of energy.” He said it was an ideal prepaid market. He also said the Iphone was the “mother of all halos” and was responsible for driving sales of other Apple products such as Macs, especially in emerging markets.

According to previous reports, the new Iphone would be available later this year, and would cost $200 with no contract. According to Sacconaghi and Cue, Cook “appeared to reaffirm the notion that Apple is likely to develop lower priced offerings” for the Iphone, says Forbes. Cook also indicated that the tablet market was likely to be bigger than the PC market, ad Sacconaghi estimates that this would mean $60 to a $100 billion business for Apple alone. Finally, the Forbes report states that Apple wants to expand on its carrier partnerships and that it only has 175 carriers today compared to the 550 that Research in Motion has.