At 1 a.m. on September 13, the much anticipated new generation of Apple's smartphone, 'iPhone 8', will debut in the world at a conference of the 'Steve Jobs theater' in Apple Park, Apple's new headquarters. Compared with the previous price, the price of this time's apple mobile phone seems to be higher, so what's the purchasing power of the Chinese this time? Reuters, the foreign media, seems to have great doubts about the purchasing power of Chinese people!
However, in the face of the speculation about how much the 'iPhone 8' actually costs, Reuters has focused on 'can the Chinese afford the $1000 iPhone 8?'
On September 11 local time, Reuters published a report entitled "lucky 8? 1000 US dollars price makes China lose its passion for iPhone".
After six quarters of sales declines in China, Apple hopes to regain its dominance in the world's largest smartphone market by launching a new generation of smartphones, the iPhone 8, on Tuesday, the article said.
However, their 'expectations' may be about to be dashed. Facing the "iPhone 8" which will cost as much as $1000 or more, Chinese consumers have made their own small calculation in mind, especially considering that the price is about twice the monthly wage per capita in China, these consumers are likely to be "deterred".
According to the report, the success of the next iPhone in China is crucial for apple. After a period of low tide, the dominant position of Apple's mobile phone, once coveted by everyone, no longer exists. At present, Apple's mobile phone ranks fifth in the Chinese market, lagging behind China's domestic brands Huawei, oppo, vivo and Xiaomi.
As of the last quarter of July, iPhone sales in Greater China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, accounted for about 18% of the total iPhone sales, becoming the next largest market after the United States and Europe. However, in contrast to the growth in other regions, the figure for Greater China is still down 10% from the same period last year.
"It's really too expensive. I'll wait until the price is reduced," said an iPhone 6 user from Nanjing, China.
Reuters went on to say that an analyst from canalys said: 'this time Apple really needs to launch very innovative products. "However, the growing influence of local competitors in China makes the work of American enterprises' more and more difficult"
IPhone 7 is a good example. Many consumers think it's too similar to the previous model. This time, despite reports that the iPhone 8 will add wireless charging, advanced touch screen and face recognition technology, Chinese netizens have not been able to reproduce the grand scene that was talked about on the Internet when the iPhone was launched.
On the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo (also a social media that directly reflects the topics consumers are concerned about), the popularity of 'iPhone 8' is slightly higher than that before the release of iPhone 7, but it is still far from the popularity when the iPhone 6 was launched.