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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Despite some paltry sales during the first weekend, China Unicom announced today that they have now sold more than 100,000 iPhones since the October 30th launch in China.

These results indicate sales picked up since the opening weekend which only had 5000 in sales reported. Still, analysts report that the 100,000 figure remains disappointing given China Unicom's 144 million subscribers.

High price, lack of Wi-Fi, and a strong gray market for iPhones in China seem to be contributing to the relatively low carrier sales.

Article Link: China Unicom Has Sold 100,000 iPhones Since Launch
 

iphones4evry1

macrumors 65816
Nov 26, 2008
1,197
0
California, USA
That's still 100,000. If you had to wait in line behind all of those people, that would be a LOOONG line. It's been on sale for what, about five weeks? You have to consider that of the 144 Million subscribers, figure 90% of those people couldn't even afford a smart phone and the corresponding monthly bill. I'm sure the basic flip phone market in China comprises 90+% of all subscribers due to cost limitations. So, let's consider the percentage of people that can afford a smart phone and its monthly bill - what percentage of those people is the 100,000 ?
 

star-fish

macrumors regular
Aug 24, 2009
171
0
That's still 100,000. If you had to wait in line behind all of those people, that would be a LOOONG line. It's been on sale for what, about five weeks? You have to consider that of the 144 Million subscribers, figure 90% of those people couldn't even afford a smart phone and the corresponding monthly bill.

100,000 is what, less than 0.007% of China's population? I don't think it's significant.

I highly doubt 90% of those 144 million subscribers couldn't afford an iPhone. Most likely they were waiting to see if the iPhone could offer something better than the millions of cheap knock-offs floating around. No point in paying more for something that offers less functionality.
 

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
100,000 is what, less than 0.007% of China's population? I don't think it's significant.

But it is a significant proportion of those people who live in China who can afford to spend $700-$1000 on a phone.

I highly doubt 90% of those 144 million subscribers couldn't afford an iPhone.

China isn't rich enough yet that most people can just afford to drop $700 to $1000 on a phone. Hell the GDP per capita of China is only $3250 per year.
 

adder7712

macrumors 68000
Mar 9, 2009
1,923
1
Canada
Aren't WiFi in mobile devices are banned in China? The N95 for the Chinese market lost it's WiFi capability.
 

Starflyer

macrumors 6502a
Jan 22, 2003
695
1,070
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

I read that as Unicron. It's early.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicron
 

coolchan

macrumors newbie
Jan 20, 2006
27
0
I think that's pretty good, considering that you could bought the 3GS on the blackmarket since summer.
 

star-fish

macrumors regular
Aug 24, 2009
171
0
But it is a significant proportion of those people who live in China who can afford to spend $700-$1000 on a phone.

China isn't rich enough yet that most people can just afford to drop $700 to $1000 on a phone. Hell the GDP per capita of China is only $3250 per year.

According to MacWorld, China has 700 million people on contract mobile phones (http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?newsid=28013). The iPhone contract isn't *that* much of a step up compared to the average cost. And GDP is a very weak way to measure a country that has 'dangerous' levels of discrepancy between rich and poor because the results are so skewed (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...9328/Danger-of-rich-poor-divide-in-China.html)
 

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
The iPhone contract isn't *that* much of a step up compared to the average cost.

Only in the US. The vast majority of contracts in China are going to be far cheaper than they are in the US as you can see in the following (source).

CSR044.gif


So as you can see per user customers in the US spend 5x as much as they do in China.


That's from 2001
 

pinwanger

macrumors member
Jul 27, 2007
99
1
You have to consider that unofficially, full version iPhone sell for around $600 in the black market, which is everywhere.

From what I know, most people in China can easily afford this phone...$1000 is medium price actually. APPLE knows this, and this is why they priced it that way.

ppl who use GDP capita per person as a justification for low sales volume are retarded.
 

macintoshtoffy

macrumors 6502a
Jul 1, 2009
921
0
New Zealand
According to MacWorld, China has 700 million people on contract mobile phones (http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?newsid=28013). The iPhone contract isn't *that* much of a step up compared to the average cost. And GDP is a very weak way to measure a country that has 'dangerous' levels of discrepancy between rich and poor because the results are so skewed (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...9328/Danger-of-rich-poor-divide-in-China.html)

Also a large amount of the economic activity is unreported and thus unrecorded - even more so in a large country like China. How many people out there have jobs but do some work on the side to earn some extra cash? I remember even in New Zealand at my last job there were people being paid under the table for their second job. If you average that $200 for 100,000 people moon lighting, in a year that is around $1billion not recorded - and that is being incredibly conservative.
 

ToM7

macrumors 6502
Sep 8, 2008
337
244
Israel
in israel the lunch was yesterday(finally!=)... & ppl are not crazy because the prices so everyone here doing a excommunication until the prices will be normal :rolleyes: only suckers bought this yesterday :p
 

reverie

macrumors regular
Nov 21, 2006
163
60
Berlin, Germany
According to MacWorld, China has 700 million people on contract mobile phones (http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?newsid=28013). The iPhone contract isn't *that* much of a step up compared to the average cost.

What do you mean by average cost? Plans that interest you personally? The average China Unicom customer is spending $6 per month (the ARPU is 42 yuan according to company reports). The cheapest iPhone plan starts at $18, three times as much. Therefore, the total number of China Unicom customers is meaningsless, at least for the sales of the next 2-5 years.

The total number of China Unicom's 3G subscribers was 335k in September (3 months after the launch of the service). Let's say it's 1 million now (tops) then the 100k official iPhones represent 10 % marketshare (or more), which is excellent.
 

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
From what I know, most people in China can easily afford this phone...$1000 is medium price actually. APPLE knows this, and this is why they priced it that way.

Out of shoppers who visit Plaza 66 in Shanghai that is probably true. Outside that - I doubt it.

Noone I know in Britain would spend $1000 on a phone even over 12 months including contract.

ppl who use GDP capita per person as a justification for low sales volume are retarded.

Why?

Also a large amount of the economic activity is unreported and thus unrecorded - even more so in a large country like China. How many people out there have jobs but do some work on the side to earn some extra cash?

Undoubtably this happens, but its not enough to double or triple China's GDP or whatever to make it so that lots of people could afford to buy iPhones.
 

yongxiaofeng

macrumors newbie
Mar 24, 2009
11
0
Ottawa
as I mentioned early,

Unicom also distributes those wifi-disabled phone gray market, and lowered down the price to compete with full-function iphone.

Unicom iPhone has covered by warranty,where those gray market one does not.

That might be why they can still put those wifi-disabled photo side by side with gray full function ones.
 

strang

macrumors member
Sep 2, 2009
87
0
Grey market phones are covered by warranty, just look up the serial before you buy.

The problem with China is that Hong Kong is so easy to get to. You can easily buy a fully functioning iPhone without contract, fully unlocked and totally legit. Albeit more money but the people that can afford the iPhone monthly plans can afford the retail price of an iPhone.
 

Stephen123

macrumors regular
Sep 3, 2007
184
11
So they sold iPhones to 10% of Unicom's 3G customers in the first 6 weeks. That's pretty amazing since they've already announced that the next batch of iPhones will have WiFi. They got bit by the change in the WiFi law, but not nearly as badly as originally reported.
 

*LTD*

macrumors G4
Feb 5, 2009
10,703
1
Canada
So they sold iPhones to 10% of Unicom's 3G customers in the first 6 weeks. That's pretty amazing since they've already announced that the next batch of iPhones will have WiFi. They got bit by the change in the WiFi law, but not nearly as badly as originally reported.

I see them bouncing back, yes.
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,219
3,821
So they sold iPhones to 10% of Unicom's 3G customers in the first 6 weeks.

The 3G customers are less than one percent (0.6%) of Unicom's customers. So the iPhone has 10% of 0.6%.

That's pretty amazing since they've already announced that the next batch of iPhones will have WiFi.

After the article highlighting that one of the primary growth barriers here being cost you seriously think that lack of WiFi is the major impediment? Likewise Unicom's high speed 3G coverage map probably makes the ATT one relatively look flushed out.


And it is amazing to snag extremely low double digits of less than 1% of a market?

If this was the Pre, Andriod, WindowsMobile,Nokia .... or anyone else this thread would be chock full of commentary about how these kinds of numbers represented epic fail.
 
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