Apple is offering a new range of steep discounts for iPhone 15 models to consumers in mainland China, with online retail platforms bringing prices to a new low amid the US tech giant’s efforts to boost sluggish sales in the world’s biggest smartphone market.
The top-of-the-line 256-gigabyte iPhone 15 Pro Max model, for example, on Monday started selling for 7,949 yuan (US$1,100) on Apple’s official online stores on JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall platform – down 2,050 yuan, or 20 per cent off, from its 9,999-yuan price tag when the new series was released last September. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
The basic 128GB iPhone 15 model, meanwhile, now costs 23 per cent less at 4,599 yuan, down from its previous price of 5,999 yuan, on both JD.com and Tmall. The sale runs from May 20 to 28, according to the two platforms.
Apple’s mainland online Apple Store, however, kept the recent prices of iPhone 15 models unchanged. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
A large iPhone 15 Pro advertisement is displayed on a large screen at the Apple Store in Wangfujing Street in Beijing. Photo: Shutterstock
Discounts of up to 800 yuan were offered by Apple through its mainland online store in the same month, covering iPhones, iPads, MacBook laptops, AirPods and the Apple Watch.
People check out various iPhone 15 models at Apple’s launch event in the firm’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, on September 12, 2023. Photo: AP
In the March quarter, the iPhone’s share of the mainland smartphone market shrank to 15.7 per cent, down from 20.2 per cent a year earlier, amid stiff domestic competition, according to a report by market research firm Counterpoint. Apple was overtaken by Vivo’s 17.4 per cent share and Honor’s 16.1 per cent.
Huawei Technologies, which had been riding its successful 5G handset comeback with the Mate 60 Pro, was ranked fourth with a 15.5 per cent market share in the same period.
Still, the recent iPhone discount drives appear to have helped Apple. Shipments of foreign-branded smartphones in March grew 12 per cent from the same period last year, according to data published earlier this month by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology earlier this month. The state-run academy did not identify the brand, but the bulk of foreign handsets sold on the mainland are from Apple.
Denial of responsibility! Pioneer Newz is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
