Apple Slashes iPhone Prices In China Amid Fierce Huawei Competition (reuters.com) 82
Apple is offering discounts of up to $318 on select iPhone models in China, hoping to "defend its position in the high-end smartphone market, where it faces increasing competition from local rivals such as Huawei," reports Reuters. From the report: The increased competitive pressure on Apple comes after Huawei last month introduced its new series of high-end smartphones, the Pura 70, following the launch of the Mate 60 last August. Apple's previous discounting effort in February appears to have helped the company mitigate a sales slowdown in China. Apple's shipments in China increased by 12% in March, according to Reuters' calculations based on data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). This marks a significant improvement from the first two months of 2024, when the company experienced a 37% slump in sales.
I think both Apple & Tesla (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
It might happen right now if Musk is stoned enough
Re: I think both Apple & Tesla (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What are the laws they want those companies to follow?
Re: (Score:1)
Censorship. Microsoft complied and is allowed to operate.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Censorship. China has censorship? How did you not know this?
Chinese companies must censor and they do. Foreign companies also have to censor and some do. Others don't want to so don't offer their products in China. It's quite simple. But there's always a whole bunch of ignorant Americans who cant comprehend...
Re: (Score:2)
My bad, I thought you were advocating that these companies should be obeying Chinese law and doing the censorship because it is law and they should just do it.
I was being facetious but I think I had your stance backwards.
Re: (Score:2)
So you agree then that TikTok is not banned and they should sell to a US company I presume, as that is now the law of the land? We shouldn't ever say TikTok was banned, they are only being asked to obey the law.
I think the distinction is that these companies do business in every other nation and maybe outside of India nobody else is really asking for that type of censorship so if you don't want to call it ban, sure, fair, but what and how and why they are being asked to censor would be the next question.
Re: (Score:2)
And you seem unable to follow a logical through line to a conclusion. Of course you'd find these questions idiotic, I don't think you have satisfying answers to any of this!
But i'll consider your ad-homs an admission in all but the actual words.
Re: (Score:2)
So TikTok isn't banned right, they are just being asked to obey the law.
I just want everyone to be consistent so if that's not a ban than I agree, no bans of American companies in China, everything is nice and voluntary and legal.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's ok to disobey a nations laws so long as you disagree on it? Did the USSC rule on the TikTok law? Are you saying the TikTok law is unfair? Does China care if the United States finds their laws unfair?
You can insult all you want, it's not making your position look consistent, in fact it's starting to seem a little unhinged. How do you quantify an "illegal law" lol. If it's the law it's de facto legal until the Supreme Court says otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
You seemed to poke "an" anthill with a stick. ;-)
And the wrong one for that matter.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: I think both Apple & Tesla (Score:3)
Re: I think both Apple & Tesla (Score:2)
Certain media *is* geofenced, so EU people donâ(TM)t have access to the same Disney+ as Korean people etc⦠but most services are running and open to Chinese citizens. VPNs are completely unnecessary in China to do 98% of the things other members of the world commu
Re: (Score:2)
They are blocked for breaking the law. Not because China doesn't like America or any other pretend reasons Americans come up with.
They are blocked for breaking laws which are about freedom of access to information, and how you're not allowed to have that in China. Those laws exist because China doesn't like America...n influence telling their people that they can be freer. As unfree as America is in so many ways, it's a shitload freer than China. They'd prefer not having anyone know that this is viable.
So while you're technically correct, which we all know is the best kind, the context is important. China's control of its citizens dep
Re: (Score:2)
So China censors all its companies because it doesn't like America?
They censor their companies because they don't want people to know about America, which is what I said.
Do you have brain damage? Suffer a nasty fall?
I don't see any evidence of that, for example I didn't click the "post anonymously" box.
Re: I think both Apple & Tesla (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I would say Apple's especially screwed since the Chinese products competing with them are better for a majority of use cases.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the Chinese government banned iPhones for any government use due to security fears, i.e. they suspect that the US can hack them.
It is probably just tit-for-tat with the US government making the same claims about Huawei.
When Chinese consumers heard it they also moved away from Apple products.
Re: (Score:3)
Even more so given that the USG sanctioned Huawei over five years ago in an attempt to destroy their ability to compete. And now after five years of sanctions they've not only not been destroyed but are poised to overtake Apple [cnn.com] in smartphone sales.
So tech sanctions on China are working about as well as the War on Drugs is for drugs. And both will be continued indefinitely until they start working.
Re: (Score:2)
Even more so given that the USG sanctioned Huawei over five years ago in an attempt to destroy their ability to compete. And now after five years of sanctions they've not only not been destroyed but are poised to overtake Apple [cnn.com] in smartphone sales.
So tech sanctions on China are working about as well as the War on Drugs is for drugs. And both will be continued indefinitely until they start working.
Huawei sales are largely to the Chinese market, and those sales as well as those of iPhones are set at least indirectly by the Chinese government. Apple's iPhone sales in China are dictated by the whims of the Chinese government and not by US government decision. If the Chinese government wished, Apple's sales could literally disappear overnight.
The surprising thing is not that iPhone sales are dropping but rather why it's taken so long for China to squeeze Apple and Tesla.
Meanwhile, Huawei sales outside
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
They are not better.
How would they?
They are phones with multi finger touch screens.
The apps you run on them are all the same.
Except for mail, browser, calendar and contacts.
Re: (Score:2)
are in trouble. We're gearing up for a cold war in China and I can't see their government allowing either company to operate there. Tesla's especially screwed because something like 1/3 of their sales are in China and they're in a much weaker position than Apple is in their market segment.
Apple and Tesla are screwed, not because of China but because people aren't buying into cults any more, more specifically, cults of personality. Steve Jobs is long dead, everyone is now seeing the Iphone for what it was, bland and average. Musk has revealed himself to be a complete lunatic and fraud (like Jobs, stole credit from the work of other people) and Tesla isn't competing for cheap Chinese EVs, they're priced the same as a high end 3 series BMW... just not equipped like one. Now everyone from BMW to
CCP? Good luck! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Only Americans care about properly coloured text messages. In China everyone uses WeChat. And the iPhone version just isn't as good as the Android version. Because the vast majority of users have Android. So they get the newer features and updates first. Simple as.
Re: (Score:3)
Around here in Europe almost everyone uses WhatsApp and Chinese phones are very popular.
Re: (Score:2)
The Android version is available as an APK file from their web site, and they don't have to deal with Apple's "review" process for publishing updates as they do for the iPhone version. That's probably a more significant reason for the Android version getting features first.
Building domestic industries (Score:2)
Isn't this just one country using its protective laws to build out its own industries with more modern technology? How that plays out is to be determined.
Re: (Score:2)
You know how it works over there. Social credit scores and what not. You have to know the CCP knows what phone you have and use. You think the sheeple (other than those connected to the CCP) are going to use anything but a Chinese brand?
Chinese people love non Chinese brands. Hell, there are thousands of "Daigou" (buying on behalf of) who are professional shoppers who buy products from overseas on behalf of Chinese residents.
The Chinese know Chinese products are crap, they'd much rather have a BMW than a Roewe, it's just that most cant afford it. Chinese social media is full of pictures of attractive Chinese "influencers" with western products trying to project a life of opulence. The authorities largely don't give a shit as long as peo
Capitalism? In China? (Score:3)
So Apple is having to compete for sales, and is lowering prices to get them? Interesting! Now, how can we get some of that competition in the US!
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, even after the price is lowered with $300, those iPhones are sold at a profit
Re: Capitalism? In China? (Score:2)
Theyâ(TM)re charging what the market will bear. Given that they have half the market in the US, although a lot less elsewhere, theyâ(TM)ve probably got the things right for now.
Re: (Score:2)
So Apple is having to compete for sales, and is lowering prices to get them? Interesting! Now, how can we get some of that competition in the US!
Competition is for capitalism. We don't have capitalism anymore. We have an oligarchy.
Re: (Score:2)
That's pretty much what I said. Time to break up the Apple / Google oligarchy.
Re: (Score:2)
So Apple is having to compete for sales, and is lowering prices to get them? Interesting! Now, how can we get some of that competition in the US!
Erm.. stop buying Apple products.
Do that and they'll drop their prices. The competition is there, there's just too many gullible fools who'll overpay for average kit.
It's called free market competitions bitches! (Score:4, Funny)
Americans with your Huawei ban wouldn't understand the benefits the free market gives the capitalist Chinese. Luckily I don't need a $318 discount on iPhones, on account of preferring Android. Though I would like a new, $11,000 electric car; unfortunately I live in a country that hates the free market.
Re: CCP funded Chinese companies (Score:1)
People forget that Huawei was #1. (Score:1)
They were becoming #1 in smartphone sales, was designing their own chips, and already had #1 status in China, and was doing well selling in Europe and was going to be selling in US, and had a contract with e.g. Verizon. Then US saw that happening and tried to destroy the company through sanctions and trying to convince everyone in Europe to sanction Huawei as well. They are just taking back their market share that US tried to steal.
Re: (Score:1)
Prescience (Score:2)
Season 7, episode 11, "Internal Displacement"
Buy in China, sell on eBay. Profit. (Score:1)
If the phones sold in China are the same as elsewhere in the world, it would seem that there's a ripe market opportunity now for someone in China to buy phones at RRP and sell them on eBay to other people new, for less than the RRP, and still make a profit.
Grey market imports (using mechanisms like this) used to feature heavity in (digital) camera equipment on some of the big name websites. Seems like a ripe opportunity for more of the same, unless Apple has bribed US customers to block such imports.
That's a healthy competition (Score:1)