Groupon subscribers will have seen an interesting offer in their inboxes this morning, as the daily deals giant offered users the chance to nab a 16GB iPhone 4S at an 87 percent discount, though the deal may not be as good as it first sounds.

Groupon iPhone 4s Deal
The Groupon iPhone 4S deal sounds better than it is.

On the Groupon deal page, it claims this deal will save you £124, however, the deal is not solely based on the up-front cost of the iPhone 4S. Going through Three directly, the same deal will cost you £49 up-front, which is a saving of just £30.

The Groupon deal does also include an accessory kit with universal screen guard, blue tooth headset, iPhone car charger and four bling cases, which is where the extra saving is made.

Groupon has just posted its first quarterly profit having reined in marketing spending as well as increasing its customer and merchant bases.

Groupon claims to have 36.9 million active customers and surpassed 100,000 merchants served in the first quarter.

Groupon's share price had almost halved to below $10 since its IPO last year, but following the announcement of its first profit, the daily deals share price rallied to climb 12.5 percent higher, having at one stage gotten as high as $13.21 before finishing at $11.74.

Groupon reported revenue of $559.3m for the previous quarter, compared with $295.5m in the first quarter of 2011. Chief financial officer Jason Child said lower marketing expense helped drive profitability. Marketing costs dropped to $117m in the first quarter from $230m a year earlier.

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