Many Chinese online retailers are already offering heavy discounts for the base iPhone 15 models amid reports of disappointing sales performance for Apple’s latest iPhone lineup (via SCMP).
According to the report, discounts primarily target the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. Two of China’s leading online vendors – Alibaba’s Taobao and PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo – have been offering discounts worth 800 and 900 yuans, equivalent to around $120. The report fails to mention whether similar discounts are also applied to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, but a recent analysis suggests that sales of the iPhone 15 lineup as a whole are 4.5% compared to the iPhone 14 a year ago.
The discounts on hand are unusual as Apple is notorious for rarely applying such offers on just-released products. The current price cuts are reportedly leading up to China’s Double 11 shopping festival which takes place every year on November 11. The festival, otherwise known as Singles’ Day, attracts 1 billion customers a year, and even bigger price cuts could be on the table as the festival edges closer.
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The report adds that sales of Huawei’s new Mate 60 lineup have been robust so far, with the Chinese OEM shipping 1.6 million units of its latest smartphones in the past six weeks. As a result, Huawei increased its own smartphone sales target by 20% to reach total sales of 40 million units in 2023. Analysts also predict Huawei to be the top OEM in China by sales in 2024, with Apple coming in second.
Apple CEO Tim Cook made a surprise visit to China last week where he visited a Luxshare-owned assembly plant rumored to undertake Vision Pro’s mass production before holding a meeting with the country’s information technology minister. Whether Cook’s visit is related to the iPhone’s sales performance remains up in the air, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
