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That is not a serious cut. Apple does not think it is in a crisis. Well, it might become a catastrophe by the end of the year. China is fast evolving market out of Apple's last year plan. Take it seriously, Apple. Make a 20-25% price cut and hold your market share. Samsung is dying there. Did you not see that?
Yeah a 5% discount isn't enough for that market, I'd recommend 30% off
 
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Chinese buy Huawei phones - plain and simple. They really do not want western companies in their markets (in this space) and feel companies like Huawei are a symbol of national pride - think GM in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's..

Well that plus the fact that the average salary in China for a white collar worker in 2018 was 7629 RMB per month, about $1136 USD. Even in Bejing where the highest average monthly pay is that is about 10,200 RMB or $1520 USD.

The overall average probably much lower across all careers.

Meanwhile, the average US salary is about $56,000, or $4,666 per month; over 4 times more for the averages. Probably more if you did a direct country to country average.

Money is a big issue. Asking someone to buy a phone that is 10% of their yearly salary is a tough proposition. It would be like expecting someone in the US to buy a $1099 XS Max with $12,000 per year pre-tax income

Don't forget that Huawei and other brands are offering better in specs and features for a fraction of an iPhone. Apple has to offer more value for money instead of focusing on profits alone. Apple is pushed out of China with their iPhones and I won't see them returning. It's simply a question of value for money and if Apple wasn't such a strong brandname it should see the same results in europe.
 
Well that plus the fact that the average salary in China for a white collar worker in 2018 was 7629 RMB per month, about $1136 USD. Even in Bejing where the highest average monthly pay is that is about 10,200 RMB or $1520 USD.

The overall average probably much lower across all careers.

Meanwhile, the average US salary is about $56,000, or $4,666 per month; over 4 times more for the averages. Probably more if you did a direct country to country average.

Money is a big issue. Asking someone to buy a phone that is 10% of their yearly salary is a tough proposition. It would be like expecting someone in the US to buy a $1099 XS Max with $12,000 per year pre-tax income
the living price in China is much lower than US accordingly. for instance, a hair cut only cost you $7 in major city. a meal only cost you around $3 normally.
you can't just compare the salary without considering the living cost.
BTW, many company can offer high-end salary even can compete apple and google directly. for instance, Huawei...
there are very big gap between rich and poor in china these days.
never under estimate the wealthy of China.
 
Apple should use their buying power to offer lower prices to everybody.
 
That is not a serious cut. Apple does not think it is in a crisis. Well, it might become a catastrophe by the end of the year. China is fast evolving market out of Apple's last year plan. Take it seriously, Apple. Make a 20-25% price cut and hold your market share. Samsung is dying there. Did you not see that?
Samsung is not dying in China, it is dead period.
it is dying in any open-market countries.
 
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Chinese buy Huawei phones - plain and simple. They really do not want western companies in their markets (in this space) and feel companies like Huawei are a symbol of national pride - think GM in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's..

I don't think it has much to do with national pride. A lot of that has to do with price and features. iPhones are nice but it is very expensive. You can spend significantly less on a Huawei or Xiaomi or OPPO without too much compromise in features. Plus, iPhone price in China is a lot higher than that in the US. iPhone XR's 6199 RMB price is roughly 923 USD. Considering that the average income in China is a lot less than the US, I think the premium price is likely the most important reason.

I also think the way many Chinese phone manufacture sell their phone plays a big role. If you go to any mid-size or small city in China, there will be lots of Huawei store or OPPO stores. Even though online sale is fairly common in China, these store likely promote sales quite a bit.
 
Cutting tax on consumer goods is the no. 1 sign that you know your economy will fall into recession very soon and you're desperate.

Because yeah, it boosts consumption but when that initial boost has settled, what are you going to do next?

Hopefully China has a virtually unlimited influx of dollars so further tax breaks won't result in inflation and deficit.

But having China crash and burn would have disastrous consquences for the rest of the world. Unless we start making the goddamn iPhones in the US, or South America, or Africa, or literally anywhere but China.
 
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The best way to rebuke Apple is to keep your existing Apple devices longer and try other platforms these days. Its amazing how many of the major YouTube influencers are switching over to alternatives: Windows 10 devices and Android.
 
Don't forget that Huawei and other brands are offering better in specs and features for a fraction of an iPhone. Apple has to offer more value for money instead of focusing on profits alone. Apple is pushed out of China with their iPhones and I won't see them returning. It's simply a question of value for money and if Apple wasn't such a strong brandname it should see the same results in europe.

Of course but 9000 RMB is still roughly 10% of a yearly average gross white collar salary regardless of living expenses. That % is much much lower in the US.
 
The best way to rebuke Apple is to keep your existing Apple devices longer and try other platforms these days. Its amazing how many of the major YouTube influencers are switching over to alternatives: Windows 10 devices and Android.

That’s because most of the influencers are paid to. First by Samsung and now by Huawei.
 
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I thought this was a bit of breaking news, until I read “in China.” Haha. In the US, iPhone prices are way over the top. It’s as though Apple is trying to price themselves out of competition or something. I haven’t bought a new iPhone in the last few years just because of their prices. We definitely need the cost to be lowered here too. Apple’s focus should be on more sales at a lower cost rather than less sales at a higher cost.
 
Chinese buy Huawei phones - plain and simple. They really do not want western companies in their markets (in this space) and feel companies like Huawei are a symbol of national pride - think GM in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's..
Oddly Chinese have bought lots of IPhones every quarter up till the Holiday quarter when we the tarrif war kicked into high gear.
 
This article cites a connection between a reduction in VAT and Apple’s price reduction, but the author should have done a bit of research before making this unsupported conclusion.

First, China’s VAT on manufacturing applies at each stage of the manufacturing process and only on what was manufactured at that stage.

In addition, VAT applies to imported parts used in the assembly of a product.

The factories that assemble iPhones in China do not manufacture most of the components that are incorporated into those phones. For example, displays and memory are manufactured in South Korea. The A chips are manufactured in Taiwan and South Korea.

All of these parts are taxed when they are imported into China, not when they are assembled into an iPhone.
 
I don't think it has much to do with national pride. A lot of that has to do with price and features. iPhones are nice but it is very expensive. You can spend significantly less on a Huawei or Xiaomi or OPPO without too much compromise in features.

It's not even a compromise with Huawei. The Mate 20 Pro is outright better and costs 4,899 RMB. The XR costs 6,199 RMB.

The Mate 20 has 6.4" OLED, Face ID, in-display fingerprint, and 3 rear cameras. Not to mention the 128GB of standard storage.

Chinese consumers aren't crazy enough to pay 25% more for an iPhone XR.
 
You can't overlook the fact that there are quite a few chinese companies manufacturing smartphones in China. Apple will have to make whatever adjustments necessary and that included the VAT. At the end of this year, we'll see if the chinese are gearing towards chinese brand smartphones and not because of slowing economy.
 
This article cites a connection between a reduction in VAT and Apple’s price reduction, but the author should have done a bit of research before making this unsupported conclusion.

First, China’s VAT on manufacturing applies at each stage of the manufacturing process and only on what was manufactured at that stage.

In addition, VAT applies to imported parts used in the assembly of a product.

The factories that assemble iPhones in China do not manufacture most of the components that are incorporated into those phones. For example, displays and memory are manufactured in South Korea. The A chips are manufactured in Taiwan and South Korea.

All of these parts are taxed when they are imported into China, not when they are assembled into an iPhone.

Apple isn't officially lowering its prices in China. It's China lowering the VAT on these consumer electronics, and Apple is one of the first to react as they have a very transparent pricing structure.
Unofficially, Apple is intentionally being blind on its resellers in China selling the products on considerable discounts for quite some time now, which wasn't the case in the previous years.

These are two informative posts. Can anyone expand and explain more about if Apple is lowering prices by reducing its bottom line, passing on savings from a lower tax that China levies against them during manufacturing, or not changing prices at all but the total cost for consumers is lower due to the decrease in the VAT?

I know in most countries the sales tax is built-in to the price of goods so what you see for any given product is what you pay, and your receipt will then detail the specific breakdown, but in the U.S. sales tax is added to the price of the product at the time of sale so you always pay more than the sticker prices.

I'm just not clear on where this price cut comes into play.
 
Oddly Chinese have bought lots of IPhones every quarter up till the Holiday quarter when we the tarrif war kicked into high gear.

Your right apple currently owns 80% of the Chinese premium smartphone market followed by Huawei with 13%. Yes only 13 percent of the premium market belongs to Huawei in China.

Apple continued its leadership in the super-premium sector in China monopolizing the top-selling model slots.

Apple practically owns the $800 an up segment. iPhone X was the best-selling model, followed by iPhone XS Max, iPhone XS, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone XR and Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

I have absolutely no idea why some posters are claiming otherwise, they are just making things up.


Btw: it’s true apple sold 12% fewer iPhones in China during the 2018 year, however because of the increase in prices, apple actually recorded 25% more value in sales for 2018 than it did for 2017.
 
Chinese buy Huawei phones - plain and simple. They really do not want western companies in their markets (in this space) and feel companies like Huawei are a symbol of national pride - think GM in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's..
This is true. Chinese markets and Chinese culture are too protectionist for anyone to expect Apple or any other non-Chinese company to achieve market dominance.
 
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Oddly Chinese have bought lots of IPhones every quarter up till the Holiday quarter when we the tarrif war kicked into high gear.

No, that's not true. Huawei overtook Apple in China back in 2014 and continued to grow ever since along with other domestic brands.

Apple sells many iPhones in China because the market is so huge. Even with less than 10% market share in China, that represents 20% of Apple's revenue.
 
It’s 2019, SSD prices have dropped significantly, there’s no reason why Apple can’t offer SSD in the standard configuration. The only justification is greed.

Yeah must be greed can’t be anything else.

It’s not like apple had to purchase toshibas ssd and memory division, yeah that definitely didn’t happen.
 
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