Uh!? What does Japan's size have to do with whether it's in Asia?
Moreover, you know that Japan has 10x the income of China, right? Do you think that might have some implications for the number of iPhones sold there?
Some people look at Asia as a whole market and some separate it out into different countries. I would look at how Apple is doing by carrier in each country, and how well they are doing by country as a whole.
I don't even know why anyone would even bring up Japan when analyzing how much Apple is going to do with China Mobile, it has no relevance.
A couple thoughts. One, unified chips tend to be less power efficient that those designed for a specific task, not to mention there are cost and size considerations. Two, I would expect any country that still uses CDMA will have a different SKU for each CDMA MNOs due to the way the chipsets needs to be flashed to support a specific CDMA carrier.
Not this one. Check it out.
It is smaller and more power efficient. CDMA phones have a database of ESIN. It is not a hardware limitation. Verizon and sprint won't add the meid number to each other network so even if it could work they won't allow it. Prior to the iPhone 5s the Sprint and Verizon iPhone 5 which is a LTE/CDMA model were identical. Only the MEID database prevents them from working on the other network not anything to do with the iPhone hardware.
Some people look at Asia as a whole market and some separate it out into different countries. I would look at how Apple is doing by carrier in each country, and how well they are doing by country as a whole.
I don't even know why anyone would even bring up Japan when analyzing how much Apple is going to do with China Mobile, it has no relevance.
If anything has a lack of relevance, your post is Exhibit A.
It might help your comprehension if you actually read the thread, especially the part where BUSHMAN4 conflated China's acceptance of the iPhone with "Asia's" acceptance of the iPhone. I was explaining to him that there was this other "Asian" country (not exactly tiny either) where the iPhone has a massive share.
Could you seriously not figure that out!? (Unless, of course, you did not know that Japan was in Asia.)
If anything has a lack of relevance, your post is Exhibit A.
It might help your comprehension if you actually read the thread, especially the part where BUSHMAN4 conflated China's acceptance of the iPhone with "Asia's" acceptance of the iPhone. I was explaining to him that there was this other "Asian" country (not exactly tiny either) where the iPhone has a massive share.
Could you seriously not figure that out!? (Unless, of course, you did not know that Japan was in Asia.)
I was just explaining that Japan IS a part of Asia, but in order to figure out how many iPhones China Mobile is going to sell, I wouldn't look at the numbers from Asia, or Japan as any relevance to trying to figure out how many iPhones will be sold during the next 12 months through China Mobile.
China Mobile market share of iPhones is ZERO. Apple only has two major carriers in China. In China, because Apple doesn't have any sales through China Mobile, they have about 8%, so the smaller carriers are probably running somewhere between 20 and 30% is a GUESS, since no one has indicated how many iPhones are selling through just the two China based carriers that have been selling iPhones longer than a year.
My guess is that Apple should be able to garner about 20 to 30% through China Mobile alone during the next 3 years, that's about 150 to 220 Million users total for a 3 year time span. I think that's doable.
Mentioning Japan and their market acceptance of iPhones has NOTHING to do with China. Completely different market and to suggest that it's relevant is absurd.
Japan doesn't like Korea, which is partly why they don't like Samsung or other Korean mfg. and why Apple is doing well in Japan.
Japan is TINY compared to China. 1/10th the size of China. Get out your map and look at the population of both countries. You are acting like Japan's numbers are relevant. They aren't.
It is smaller and more power efficient. CDMA phones have a database of ESIN. It is not a hardware limitation. Verizon and sprint won't add the meid number to each other network so even if it could work they won't allow it. Prior to the iPhone 5s the Sprint and Verizon iPhone 5 which is a LTE/CDMA model were identical. Only the MEID database prevents them from working on the other network not anything to do with the iPhone hardware.
Could you explain why you think there will be one SKU for a given color and capacity iPhone in the US market with this chip when your comments clearly indicate you are aware of ESIN and the issues that have thus far prevented there from being a single SKU in the manner discussed when the HW is the same between two CDMA-based MNOs?
... and how do you qualify your "millions of customers which will translate into billions of $$$" statement? a guess?
Anything that anyone says regarding future sales is a guess, some are more accurate in their guesses? It wouldn't surprise me if they sold 5 Million units to CM customers, providing they had enough inventory. Remember, Apple sold 9 Million units within the first 3 days after they announced the 5S and 5C. China Mobile has a LOT of pent up demand.
Uh!? What does Japan's size have to do with whether it's in Asia?
Moreover, you know that Japan has 10x the income of China, right? Do you think that might have some implications for the number of iPhones sold there?
Here's another method of gauging how many rich people there are in a country. Take a look at Rolls Royce Motorcars. They have only three dealerships in the entire country of Japan. In China, they are in the process or building more locations to have a total of 22 locations which should be completed fairly soon. Meaning, there are a LOT of extremely rich people in China. Yeah, there are a lot of poor people, but there are a LOT of people making more money than they used to. The number of wealthy people in China making decent money is probably as many people in Japan.
How many Apple Store locations could China support vs Japan? Probably about 9 to 10x, which is the about the population difference between the two countries. China is getting a LOT more wealthier people in the larger cities as more and more products are made in China. Yeah, the workers that assemble the products don't make much money, but their wages have increased over the last 5 years, but Apple wouldn't selling to assembly workers, they would be selling to people that are more upper management, business owners, etc., which is increasing pretty rapidly.
Just in terms of sales of Mercedes, they sold 56,000+ vehicles in the Sept quarter for China, in Japan, they only sold 14,500+ cars in the same time period. BMW sales in China grew 20% and they sold 285,000 cars between Jan and Sept.
There was a report that mentioned that by the end of the decade China will surpass the US in terms of luxury car sales.
China has and is changing quite rapidly over the past decade and the current decade.
China will be the biggest market for premium brands of computers, cars, clothing, smartphones, etc. That's why Apple is constantly building record sized stores in China.
China Mobile market share of iPhones is ZERO. Apple only has two major carriers in China. In China, because Apple doesn't have any sales through China Mobile, they have about 8%, so the smaller carriers are probably running somewhere between 20 and 30% is a GUESS, since no one has indicated how many iPhones are selling through just the two China based carriers that have been selling iPhones longer than a year.
This is very interesting. How is market share calculated? Is it simply # number of iPhone sold in China vs poulation of mobile users? This works for most countries but not China. There are actually 42M iPhone users on China Mobile's network. They just don't get 3G due to compatibility issues. That is right, there are 42 MILLION people using 2G on their iPhone on China mobiles networks. So China Mobile already has 5% of their users on iPhones.
A lot of these phones are purchased via the grey market (old models as well as the new ones). People outside of Hong Kong and China probably doesn't know this. But Hong Kong has one of the best prices for buying Apple products due to the Hong Kong currency has a fixed rate with the US and no tax. With the rising China currency (RMB), there is a 15% difference in price.
So basically what people in Hong Kong do (and I mean the average Joe) is the order via the Apple Online store (limited to 2 per person when new model is release) and we just sell to local shops for like a $100+ USD profit (when new model is just released) and then goes down to $30-50 as more supply is available(plus we use credit card to get stuff like air miles). And these local shops will find a way to ship them back to China for profit. And it is a HUGE market, there are websites dedicated to the price fluctuations that have 50,000+ registered users. I wouldn't be surprise if the Hong Kong stores (retail, online) sells more than 1 iPhone per capita each year. Hong Kong has a population of about 7 million. I am pretty sure the annual sales is at least 10M if not more. If you think iPhone shortage is bad in the States, the Hong Kong online store usually lasts about 5 minutes for the first batch of iPhones. And in store reservation? People write automated programs (bots) to take all the slots right at 6AM when they go online.
I am not even that dedicated and I have resold 10+ iPhone 5s. I know people in the 100+ range.
This is very interesting. How is market share calculated? Is it simply # number of iPhone sold in China vs poulation of mobile users? This works for most countries but not China. There are actually 42M iPhone users on China Mobile's network. They just don't get 3G due to compatibility issues. That is right, there are 42 MILLION people using 2G on their iPhone on China mobiles networks.
A lot of these phones are purchased via the grey market (old models as well as the new ones). People outside of Hong Kong and China probably doesn't know this. But Hong Kong has one of the best prices for buying Apple products due to the Hong Kong currency has a fixed rate with the US and no tax. With the rising China currency (RMB), there is a 15% difference in price.
So basically what people in Hong Kong do (and I mean the average Joe) is the order via the Apple Online store (limited to 2 per person when new model is release) and we just sell to local shops for like a $100+ USD profit (when new model is just released) and then goes down to $30-50 as more supply is available(plus we use credit card to get stuff like air miles). And these local shops will find a way to ship them back to China for profit. And it is a HUGE market, there are websites dedicated to the price fluctuations that have 50,000+ registered users. I wouldn't be surprise if the Hong Kong stores (retail, online) sells more than 1 iPhone per capita each year. Hong Kong has a population of about 7 million. I am pretty sure the annual sales is at least 10M if not more.
I am not even that dedicated and I have resold 10+ iPhone 5s. I know people in the 100+ range.
Well, the grey market will eventually shrink. So you are one of those people that makes money by selling iPhones on the grey market in China? And you are reporting ME?
So why did you even bother mentioning Japan? Japan is a different market.
When I calculate the market share, it's what's being sold through various carriers, not the grey market, I don't think those numbers show up. Apple will sell lots of phones directly through CM. It's just a matter of how many. I'm sure they might have special models made since CM's network is different.
I hope the grey market goes aways since it doesn't really help anyone. It's sleazy.
Wow, you guys are all arguing over this way too much. If history tells us anything a lot of you will be very wrong and a few will be closer to the mark and in the end Apple will make a sh!t load of money.
It seems only yesterday many folks were writing right here on AI that Japanese folks would never buy iPhones and Chinese people were all too poor ....
This is very interesting. How is market share calculated? Is it simply # number of iPhone sold in China vs poulation of mobile users? This works for most countries but not China. There are actually 42M iPhone users on China Mobile's network. They just don't get 3G due to compatibility issues. That is right, there are 42 MILLION people using 2G on their iPhone on China mobiles networks.
A lot of these phones are purchased via the grey market (old models as well as the new ones). People outside of Hong Kong and China probably doesn't know this. But Hong Kong has one of the best prices for buying Apple products due to the Hong Kong currency has a fixed rate with the US and no tax. With the rising China currency (RMB), there is a 15% difference in price.
So basically what people in Hong Kong do (and I mean the average Joe) is the order via the Apple Online store (limited to 2 per person when new model is release) and we just sell to local shops for like a $100+ USD profit (when new model is just released) and then goes down to $30-50 as more supply is available(plus we use credit card to get stuff like air miles). And these local shops will find a way to ship them back to China for profit. And it is a HUGE market, there are websites dedicated to the price fluctuations that have 50,000+ registered users. I wouldn't be surprise if the Hong Kong stores (retail, online) sells more than 1 iPhone per capita each year. Hong Kong has a population of about 7 million. I am pretty sure the annual sales is at least 10M if not more.
I am not even that dedicated and I have resold 10+ iPhone 5s. I know people in the 100+ range.
Well, the grey market will eventually shrink. So you are one of those people that makes money by selling iPhones on the grey market in China? And you are reporting ME?
So why did you even bother mentioning Japan? Japan is a different market.
When I calculate the market share, it's what's being sold through various carriers, not the grey market, I don't think those numbers show up. Apple will sell lots of phones directly through CM. It's just a matter of how many. I'm sure they might have special models made since CM's network is different.
I hope the grey market goes aways since it doesn't really help anyone. It's sleazy.
Lol, chill out. I wasn't the guy who mentioned Japan.
I am just wondering about market share. Where are you getting your number of 20-30% for the other Chinese carriers? It is no where near that high. Like I mentioned, people are mistaken if they think there is 0 iPhones on CM now. Therefore, you cannot put China's market share numbers all into the other 2 carrriers. CM has 42 million iPhone (5% share on their networks now).
As for market share, I don't think analyst have numbers sold for all the brands from all the carriers/electronics shops. I am pretty sure their numbers are from surveys of the general population. That is why the numbers are sometimes different. Most brands don't even reveal how many they sold each quarter (Samsung, etc) and Apple doesn't even have regional breakdown as far as I know. So I actually think the grey market iPhones are accounted for in market share.
And please don't comment on the grey market if you don't know anything about it. It is not like I am paying people to stand in to buy iPhones from other people who want them. I order them online and re-sell to shops. There is profit to be made because of the price difference between Hong Kong and China prices. It is as sleazy as people in the US driving to states with lower taxes to buy things. Or buying things from duty free shops at the airport. Or people selling hot items on eBay.
Could you explain why you think there will be one SKU for a given color and capacity iPhone in the US market with this chip when your comments clearly indicate you are aware of ESIN and the issues that have thus far prevented there from being a single SKU in the manner discussed when the HW is the same between two CDMA-based MNOs?
Sure, I will be happy to explain that once you admit you were wrong about a universal front end needing to be less power efficient. You also mentioned size considerations even though the RF360 is smaller. You also said the chipsets for CDMA need to be flashed to support a different CDMA carrier is also inaccurate since they use a MEID database and only allow ones in their database so no flashing required. Once you address your three errors lets address the possibility they they would indeed have separate SKU's. By the way you do realize that printing separate SKU's on a box would be a lot cheaper than actually producing dozens of more actual models. An iPhone with a RF360 would mean far fewer actual iPhone lines needed to be run at Foxcomm and other assembly lines resulting in cost savings for Apple. That is the true savings benefit. Who cares if they have the same number of Sku's printed on the boxes when they can essentially make one iPhone that can be used on every carrier on the planet?
I pasted your original reply below.
"A couple thoughts. One, unified chips tend to be less power efficient that those designed for a specific task, not to mention there are cost and size considerations. Two, I would expect any country that still uses CDMA will have a different SKU for each CDMA MNOs due to the way the chipsets needs to be flashed to support a specific CDMA carrier."
Here's something to find out. Out of the other China based carriers, what's Apple's market share? 20%, 30%? Is it growing, staying stagnant or shrinking?
Let's run a couple of what ifs. Let's assume for a second that the other carriers have 20 and 30% of their subscribers are iPhone users, so it's possible that CM could see the same market share numbers within their own market over the course of 3 years.
740 Million subscribers total x .2 = 148 Million iPhone users
740 Million subscribers total x .3 = 220 Million iPhone users
There is no way Apple's market share is even close to 20%-30% on the other carriers. It is probably close to 10-11%. You really need to research the Chinese market. Out of the 1.2B mobile users, only 300-400M are even on 3G/4G networks. Yes, the Chinese is getting more wealthy and can afford more luxury goods. But the wealth is not spread very well. Maybe the top 20%-25% can afford an iPhone (which is still a market just as big as the US). But for your 20-30% market share, ALL these people would need to buy iPhones. I think at best, it is a 50/50 split at the high end..
Sure, I will be happy to explain that once you admit you were wrong about a universal front end needing to be less power efficient. You also mentioned size considerations even though the RF360 is smaller. You also said the chipsets for CDMA need to be flashed to support a different CDMA carrier is also inaccurate since they use a MEID database and only allow ones in their database so no flashing required. Once you address your three errors lets address the possibility they they would indeed have separate SKU's. By the way you do realize that printing separate SKU's on a box would be a lot cheaper than actually producing dozens of more actual models. An iPhone with a RF360 would mean far fewer actual iPhone lines needed to be run at Foxcomm and other assembly lines resulting in cost savings for Apple. That is the true savings benefit. Who cares if they have the same number of Sku's printed on the boxes when they can essentially make one iPhone that can be used on every carrier on the planet?
I pasted your original reply below.
"A couple thoughts. One, unified chips tend to be less power efficient that those designed for a specific task, not to mention there are cost and size considerations. Two, I would expect any country that still uses CDMA will have a different SKU for each CDMA MNOs due to the way the chipsets needs to be flashed to support a specific CDMA carrier."
1) My comments are correct. When you take multiple chips doing multiple functions that need to be switched they tend to use more power, be larger, more complex, and more costly. This is in no way the universal constant you claim I stated as I clearly used the word tend, but you still haven't shown that these chips will in fact be more power efficient, at a given node, than bespoke chipsets designed for a specific carrier and region.
2) We're not talking about Foxconn production lines for various HW, we're taking about SKUs. You are the one that specifically stated there will be less SKU down to just ones based on color and storage. You're the one who is claiming that Apple will not need a different SKU for a Verizon 32GB White iPhone 6 v a Sprint 32GB White iPhone 6. You're also the one that hasn't yet proven that Qualcomm's solution will allow for an after-factory accessible method of switching CMDA MNOs.
3) You piqued my interest with your claims of what I've wanted to have happen for over a decade now but it seems like you're trying to weasel out of your initial claim. Why is that? Did you miss interpret the literature? Were you too over zealous in your desire for it to be true? I hope you're correct but so far you've provided no proof of your initial comments.
My gut tells me that 17mm iPhones over the entire year is a bit too conservative. When the estimate is that Apple has at least 70mm potential customers on that carrier alone? I%u2019d be expecting more like 25 ~ 30 mm for the year.
My guess is as good as that analyst%u2019s though...
My gut tells me that 17mm iPhones over the entire year is a bit too conservative. When the estimate is that Apple has at least 70mm potential customers on that carrier alone? I%u2019d be expecting more like 25 ~ 30 mm for the year.
My guess is as good as that analyst%u2019s though...
Yeah, I think it's VERY conservative. Some analysts are like that. They would rather be conservative in their predictions than be too liberal about it. It's the way a lot of them are trained. I would wait for more analysts to give THEIR insight, and then take the average and then use whatever Apple THINKS and use my own thoughts to arrive at what I felt was reasonable and then see what happens.
I think the real number is going to be between 20 and 70 Million units for the first year and that depends on production levels, what other models they release through China Mobile and at what time. But that's about as close as I'm going to get at this point in time and will reserve the right to narrow down the number after at least one quarter's worth of sales.
Comments
Uh!? What does Japan's size have to do with whether it's in Asia?
Moreover, you know that Japan has 10x the income of China, right? Do you think that might have some implications for the number of iPhones sold there?
Some people look at Asia as a whole market and some separate it out into different countries. I would look at how Apple is doing by carrier in each country, and how well they are doing by country as a whole.
I don't even know why anyone would even bring up Japan when analyzing how much Apple is going to do with China Mobile, it has no relevance.
A couple thoughts. One, unified chips tend to be less power efficient that those designed for a specific task, not to mention there are cost and size considerations. Two, I would expect any country that still uses CDMA will have a different SKU for each CDMA MNOs due to the way the chipsets needs to be flashed to support a specific CDMA carrier.
Not this one. Check it out.
It is smaller and more power efficient. CDMA phones have a database of ESIN. It is not a hardware limitation. Verizon and sprint won't add the meid number to each other network so even if it could work they won't allow it. Prior to the iPhone 5s the Sprint and Verizon iPhone 5 which is a LTE/CDMA model were identical. Only the MEID database prevents them from working on the other network not anything to do with the iPhone hardware.
http://www.qualcomm.com/media/documents/qualcomm-rf360-front-end-solution-infographic
http://www.qualcomm.com/chipsets/gobi/rf-solutions/qualcomm-rf360-front-end
http://www.qualcomm.com/media/releases/2013/02/21/qualcomm-rf360-front-end-solution-enables-single-global-lte-design-next
If anything has a lack of relevance, your post is Exhibit A.
It might help your comprehension if you actually read the thread, especially the part where BUSHMAN4 conflated China's acceptance of the iPhone with "Asia's" acceptance of the iPhone. I was explaining to him that there was this other "Asian" country (not exactly tiny either) where the iPhone has a massive share.
Could you seriously not figure that out!? (Unless, of course, you did not know that Japan was in Asia.)
If anything has a lack of relevance, your post is Exhibit A.
It might help your comprehension if you actually read the thread, especially the part where BUSHMAN4 conflated China's acceptance of the iPhone with "Asia's" acceptance of the iPhone. I was explaining to him that there was this other "Asian" country (not exactly tiny either) where the iPhone has a massive share.
Could you seriously not figure that out!? (Unless, of course, you did not know that Japan was in Asia.)
I was just explaining that Japan IS a part of Asia, but in order to figure out how many iPhones China Mobile is going to sell, I wouldn't look at the numbers from Asia, or Japan as any relevance to trying to figure out how many iPhones will be sold during the next 12 months through China Mobile.
China Mobile market share of iPhones is ZERO. Apple only has two major carriers in China. In China, because Apple doesn't have any sales through China Mobile, they have about 8%, so the smaller carriers are probably running somewhere between 20 and 30% is a GUESS, since no one has indicated how many iPhones are selling through just the two China based carriers that have been selling iPhones longer than a year.
My guess is that Apple should be able to garner about 20 to 30% through China Mobile alone during the next 3 years, that's about 150 to 220 Million users total for a 3 year time span. I think that's doable.
Mentioning Japan and their market acceptance of iPhones has NOTHING to do with China. Completely different market and to suggest that it's relevant is absurd.
Japan doesn't like Korea, which is partly why they don't like Samsung or other Korean mfg. and why Apple is doing well in Japan.
Japan is TINY compared to China. 1/10th the size of China. Get out your map and look at the population of both countries. You are acting like Japan's numbers are relevant. They aren't.
Could you explain why you think there will be one SKU for a given color and capacity iPhone in the US market with this chip when your comments clearly indicate you are aware of ESIN and the issues that have thus far prevented there from being a single SKU in the manner discussed when the HW is the same between two CDMA-based MNOs?
Groan. Best not to sink to your level.
And, you've been reported.
Groan. Best not to sink to your level.
And, you've been reported.
For what? Telling the truth? What happens in the Japanese market has absolutely NOTHING to do with how much China Mobile is going to sell.
So why are you even bringing up Japan sales?
... and how do you qualify your "millions of customers which will translate into billions of $$$" statement? a guess?
Anything that anyone says regarding future sales is a guess, some are more accurate in their guesses? It wouldn't surprise me if they sold 5 Million units to CM customers, providing they had enough inventory. Remember, Apple sold 9 Million units within the first 3 days after they announced the 5S and 5C. China Mobile has a LOT of pent up demand.
Uh!? What does Japan's size have to do with whether it's in Asia?
Moreover, you know that Japan has 10x the income of China, right? Do you think that might have some implications for the number of iPhones sold there?
Here's another method of gauging how many rich people there are in a country. Take a look at Rolls Royce Motorcars. They have only three dealerships in the entire country of Japan. In China, they are in the process or building more locations to have a total of 22 locations which should be completed fairly soon. Meaning, there are a LOT of extremely rich people in China. Yeah, there are a lot of poor people, but there are a LOT of people making more money than they used to. The number of wealthy people in China making decent money is probably as many people in Japan.
How many Apple Store locations could China support vs Japan? Probably about 9 to 10x, which is the about the population difference between the two countries. China is getting a LOT more wealthier people in the larger cities as more and more products are made in China. Yeah, the workers that assemble the products don't make much money, but their wages have increased over the last 5 years, but Apple wouldn't selling to assembly workers, they would be selling to people that are more upper management, business owners, etc., which is increasing pretty rapidly.
Just in terms of sales of Mercedes, they sold 56,000+ vehicles in the Sept quarter for China, in Japan, they only sold 14,500+ cars in the same time period. BMW sales in China grew 20% and they sold 285,000 cars between Jan and Sept.
There was a report that mentioned that by the end of the decade China will surpass the US in terms of luxury car sales.
China has and is changing quite rapidly over the past decade and the current decade.
China will be the biggest market for premium brands of computers, cars, clothing, smartphones, etc. That's why Apple is constantly building record sized stores in China.
This is very interesting. How is market share calculated? Is it simply # number of iPhone sold in China vs poulation of mobile users? This works for most countries but not China. There are actually 42M iPhone users on China Mobile's network. They just don't get 3G due to compatibility issues. That is right, there are 42 MILLION people using 2G on their iPhone on China mobiles networks. So China Mobile already has 5% of their users on iPhones.
A lot of these phones are purchased via the grey market (old models as well as the new ones). People outside of Hong Kong and China probably doesn't know this. But Hong Kong has one of the best prices for buying Apple products due to the Hong Kong currency has a fixed rate with the US and no tax. With the rising China currency (RMB), there is a 15% difference in price.
So basically what people in Hong Kong do (and I mean the average Joe) is the order via the Apple Online store (limited to 2 per person when new model is release) and we just sell to local shops for like a $100+ USD profit (when new model is just released) and then goes down to $30-50 as more supply is available(plus we use credit card to get stuff like air miles). And these local shops will find a way to ship them back to China for profit. And it is a HUGE market, there are websites dedicated to the price fluctuations that have 50,000+ registered users. I wouldn't be surprise if the Hong Kong stores (retail, online) sells more than 1 iPhone per capita each year. Hong Kong has a population of about 7 million. I am pretty sure the annual sales is at least 10M if not more. If you think iPhone shortage is bad in the States, the Hong Kong online store usually lasts about 5 minutes for the first batch of iPhones. And in store reservation? People write automated programs (bots) to take all the slots right at 6AM when they go online.
I am not even that dedicated and I have resold 10+ iPhone 5s. I know people in the 100+ range.
This is very interesting. How is market share calculated? Is it simply # number of iPhone sold in China vs poulation of mobile users? This works for most countries but not China. There are actually 42M iPhone users on China Mobile's network. They just don't get 3G due to compatibility issues. That is right, there are 42 MILLION people using 2G on their iPhone on China mobiles networks.
A lot of these phones are purchased via the grey market (old models as well as the new ones). People outside of Hong Kong and China probably doesn't know this. But Hong Kong has one of the best prices for buying Apple products due to the Hong Kong currency has a fixed rate with the US and no tax. With the rising China currency (RMB), there is a 15% difference in price.
So basically what people in Hong Kong do (and I mean the average Joe) is the order via the Apple Online store (limited to 2 per person when new model is release) and we just sell to local shops for like a $100+ USD profit (when new model is just released) and then goes down to $30-50 as more supply is available(plus we use credit card to get stuff like air miles). And these local shops will find a way to ship them back to China for profit. And it is a HUGE market, there are websites dedicated to the price fluctuations that have 50,000+ registered users. I wouldn't be surprise if the Hong Kong stores (retail, online) sells more than 1 iPhone per capita each year. Hong Kong has a population of about 7 million. I am pretty sure the annual sales is at least 10M if not more.
I am not even that dedicated and I have resold 10+ iPhone 5s. I know people in the 100+ range.
Well, the grey market will eventually shrink. So you are one of those people that makes money by selling iPhones on the grey market in China? And you are reporting ME?
So why did you even bother mentioning Japan? Japan is a different market.
When I calculate the market share, it's what's being sold through various carriers, not the grey market, I don't think those numbers show up. Apple will sell lots of phones directly through CM. It's just a matter of how many. I'm sure they might have special models made since CM's network is different.
I hope the grey market goes aways since it doesn't really help anyone. It's sleazy.
It seems only yesterday many folks were writing right here on AI that Japanese folks would never buy iPhones and Chinese people were all too poor ....
This is very interesting. How is market share calculated? Is it simply # number of iPhone sold in China vs poulation of mobile users? This works for most countries but not China. There are actually 42M iPhone users on China Mobile's network. They just don't get 3G due to compatibility issues. That is right, there are 42 MILLION people using 2G on their iPhone on China mobiles networks.
A lot of these phones are purchased via the grey market (old models as well as the new ones). People outside of Hong Kong and China probably doesn't know this. But Hong Kong has one of the best prices for buying Apple products due to the Hong Kong currency has a fixed rate with the US and no tax. With the rising China currency (RMB), there is a 15% difference in price.
So basically what people in Hong Kong do (and I mean the average Joe) is the order via the Apple Online store (limited to 2 per person when new model is release) and we just sell to local shops for like a $100+ USD profit (when new model is just released) and then goes down to $30-50 as more supply is available(plus we use credit card to get stuff like air miles). And these local shops will find a way to ship them back to China for profit. And it is a HUGE market, there are websites dedicated to the price fluctuations that have 50,000+ registered users. I wouldn't be surprise if the Hong Kong stores (retail, online) sells more than 1 iPhone per capita each year. Hong Kong has a population of about 7 million. I am pretty sure the annual sales is at least 10M if not more.
I am not even that dedicated and I have resold 10+ iPhone 5s. I know people in the 100+ range.
Well, the grey market will eventually shrink. So you are one of those people that makes money by selling iPhones on the grey market in China? And you are reporting ME?
So why did you even bother mentioning Japan? Japan is a different market.
When I calculate the market share, it's what's being sold through various carriers, not the grey market, I don't think those numbers show up. Apple will sell lots of phones directly through CM. It's just a matter of how many. I'm sure they might have special models made since CM's network is different.
I hope the grey market goes aways since it doesn't really help anyone. It's sleazy.
Lol, chill out. I wasn't the guy who mentioned Japan.
I am just wondering about market share. Where are you getting your number of 20-30% for the other Chinese carriers? It is no where near that high. Like I mentioned, people are mistaken if they think there is 0 iPhones on CM now. Therefore, you cannot put China's market share numbers all into the other 2 carrriers. CM has 42 million iPhone (5% share on their networks now).
As for market share, I don't think analyst have numbers sold for all the brands from all the carriers/electronics shops. I am pretty sure their numbers are from surveys of the general population. That is why the numbers are sometimes different. Most brands don't even reveal how many they sold each quarter (Samsung, etc) and Apple doesn't even have regional breakdown as far as I know. So I actually think the grey market iPhones are accounted for in market share.
And please don't comment on the grey market if you don't know anything about it. It is not like I am paying people to stand in to buy iPhones from other people who want them. I order them online and re-sell to shops. There is profit to be made because of the price difference between Hong Kong and China prices. It is as sleazy as people in the US driving to states with lower taxes to buy things. Or buying things from duty free shops at the airport. Or people selling hot items on eBay.
Could you explain why you think there will be one SKU for a given color and capacity iPhone in the US market with this chip when your comments clearly indicate you are aware of ESIN and the issues that have thus far prevented there from being a single SKU in the manner discussed when the HW is the same between two CDMA-based MNOs?
Sure, I will be happy to explain that once you admit you were wrong about a universal front end needing to be less power efficient. You also mentioned size considerations even though the RF360 is smaller. You also said the chipsets for CDMA need to be flashed to support a different CDMA carrier is also inaccurate since they use a MEID database and only allow ones in their database so no flashing required. Once you address your three errors lets address the possibility they they would indeed have separate SKU's. By the way you do realize that printing separate SKU's on a box would be a lot cheaper than actually producing dozens of more actual models. An iPhone with a RF360 would mean far fewer actual iPhone lines needed to be run at Foxcomm and other assembly lines resulting in cost savings for Apple. That is the true savings benefit. Who cares if they have the same number of Sku's printed on the boxes when they can essentially make one iPhone that can be used on every carrier on the planet?
I pasted your original reply below.
"A couple thoughts. One, unified chips tend to be less power efficient that those designed for a specific task, not to mention there are cost and size considerations. Two, I would expect any country that still uses CDMA will have a different SKU for each CDMA MNOs due to the way the chipsets needs to be flashed to support a specific CDMA carrier."
Here's something to find out. Out of the other China based carriers, what's Apple's market share? 20%, 30%? Is it growing, staying stagnant or shrinking?
Let's run a couple of what ifs. Let's assume for a second that the other carriers have 20 and 30% of their subscribers are iPhone users, so it's possible that CM could see the same market share numbers within their own market over the course of 3 years.
740 Million subscribers total x .2 = 148 Million iPhone users
740 Million subscribers total x .3 = 220 Million iPhone users
There is no way Apple's market share is even close to 20%-30% on the other carriers. It is probably close to 10-11%. You really need to research the Chinese market. Out of the 1.2B mobile users, only 300-400M are even on 3G/4G networks. Yes, the Chinese is getting more wealthy and can afford more luxury goods. But the wealth is not spread very well. Maybe the top 20%-25% can afford an iPhone (which is still a market just as big as the US). But for your 20-30% market share, ALL these people would need to buy iPhones. I think at best, it is a 50/50 split at the high end..
1) My comments are correct. When you take multiple chips doing multiple functions that need to be switched they tend to use more power, be larger, more complex, and more costly. This is in no way the universal constant you claim I stated as I clearly used the word tend, but you still haven't shown that these chips will in fact be more power efficient, at a given node, than bespoke chipsets designed for a specific carrier and region.
2) We're not talking about Foxconn production lines for various HW, we're taking about SKUs. You are the one that specifically stated there will be less SKU down to just ones based on color and storage. You're the one who is claiming that Apple will not need a different SKU for a Verizon 32GB White iPhone 6 v a Sprint 32GB White iPhone 6. You're also the one that hasn't yet proven that Qualcomm's solution will allow for an after-factory accessible method of switching CMDA MNOs.
3) You piqued my interest with your claims of what I've wanted to have happen for over a decade now but it seems like you're trying to weasel out of your initial claim. Why is that? Did you miss interpret the literature? Were you too over zealous in your desire for it to be true? I hope you're correct but so far you've provided no proof of your initial comments.
My guess is as good as that analyst%u2019s though...
My gut tells me that 17mm iPhones over the entire year is a bit too conservative. When the estimate is that Apple has at least 70mm potential customers on that carrier alone? I%u2019d be expecting more like 25 ~ 30 mm for the year.
My guess is as good as that analyst%u2019s though...
Yeah, I think it's VERY conservative. Some analysts are like that. They would rather be conservative in their predictions than be too liberal about it. It's the way a lot of them are trained. I would wait for more analysts to give THEIR insight, and then take the average and then use whatever Apple THINKS and use my own thoughts to arrive at what I felt was reasonable and then see what happens.
I think the real number is going to be between 20 and 70 Million units for the first year and that depends on production levels, what other models they release through China Mobile and at what time. But that's about as close as I'm going to get at this point in time and will reserve the right to narrow down the number after at least one quarter's worth of sales.