China catches 'Apple fever' as potential iPhone market continues to grow

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
The iPhone 4 has been selling at a pace much faster than its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS, serving as evidence that China is catching "Apple fever," according to one analyst.



Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities issued a note to investors Monday in which noted yet again that the iPhone 4 continues to be scarcely available in China. Apple has struggled to meet demand for its smartphone since it first launched in September.



"We continue to believe that China remains in the early stages of catching 'Apple fever' and demand for iPhone 4 has been well above the ramp of the iPhone 3GS thus far," he said.



White recently toured China and met with officials from the nation's wireless carriers. They indicated they believe the total high-end smartphone market in China is between 100 million and 125 million.



That huge addressable market could prove to be a "significant opportunity for growth" for Apple in the years ahead, White said.



"The iPhone 4 is sold out for two months at authorized Apple resellers, Apple stores and China Unicom," he said. "In fact, we estimate China Unicom has been unable to fulfill approximately one-third of the iPhone 4 orders due to shortages.



The iPhone 4 got off to a hot start on carrier China Unicom in September, when it sold 100,000 in its first four days. Since then, limited supply led to extensive scalping, forcing Apple to require reservations for purchases.



And China Mobile, which is not an official partner with Apple, has been helping users trim their SIM card to fit inside the iPhone 4, which requires a microSIM. White noted that even though China Mobile does not sell the iPhone 4, it has the most iPhone subscribers on its network.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 40
    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.
  • Reply 2 of 40
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    We'll see won't we.
  • Reply 3 of 40
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    You've really got to update your calendar... we're actually in the 21st century... not the end of the 19th...
  • Reply 4 of 40
    Apple needs to seriously address shortage issue in China before them Chinese people start looking elsewhere..
  • Reply 5 of 40
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple



    Who do you think the U.S. has been paying for decades? We don't have the predominance of our debt tied up in Andorra.
  • Reply 6 of 40
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    Not all of China is composed of poor people. Shanghai and Beijing both have sizable upper and middle classes.
  • Reply 7 of 40
    801801 Posts: 271member
    IS this the same chinese who are not rich enough that forced Porsche to create a 4 seater?
  • Reply 8 of 40
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple ...



    This isn't true. There are quite some very rich people in China. Of course, there are many more poor. In automobiles, top tier expensive cars by BMW, Mercede-Benz, Land Rover, Bentley are more popular than Infinity, Accura or Lexus. I can't predict who will win out in the long run. But, in the short run, I feel that iPhone will outsell Androids for quite a while.
  • Reply 9 of 40
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    You've really got to update your calendar... we're actually in the 21st century... not the end of the 19th...



    Seriously!
  • Reply 10 of 40
    normmnormm Posts: 653member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    In absolute numbers China has a bigger middle class than the US at this point, and in any case comparable Android phones are comparably priced.
  • Reply 11 of 40
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    china has imported iphones for years from the gray market.



    9
  • Reply 12 of 40
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    ..trolling..



    Please stop feeding this troll.
  • Reply 13 of 40
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    Perhaps you should expand your reading skills.



    Quote:

    EIJING, China - China boasts the third-largest population of millionaires in the world, behind the United States and Japan, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said on Thursday.



    At the end of 2009, China had 670,000 households with more than $1 million (S$1.3 million) wealth, up 60 per cent from the same period in 2008. And the country's composite wealth grew by some 28 per cent from the end of 2008 to the end of 2009, to $5.4 trillion, BCG's latest research shows.



    http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News...03-250668.html



    And with an average urban household size of 3.2, there are more than 2 million family members to draw from, plus the the estimated 250-300 million people who fall into the middle class category. http://en.21cbh.com/HTML/2010-11-22/...DIwNzE0Mg.html



    And when it comes to billionaires:

    Quote:

    A total of 64 people from the Chinese mainland made the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest billionaires, moving up to take second place for the first time.



    The US led the list, released Wednesday, with 403 billionaires. The Chinese mainland was followed by Russia with 62 billionaires. Of the world's 97 new billionaires, 62 were from Asia. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/busines...nt_9575101.htm



    And if anything, they pay in cash.
  • Reply 14 of 40
    daveswdavesw Posts: 406member
    Android Homescreens Become Advertising



    A crappy OS made crappier by Ads. ROFL





    http://mashable.com/2010/12/20/andro...e-advertising/
  • Reply 15 of 40
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    Ignorance is bliss, eh?
  • Reply 16 of 40
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    Not an accurate picture of China dude. There are a lot of rural poor people to be sure but you're a bit behind the times on a huge and growing urban middle class with a lust for western luxury goods. http://brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=478 suggests that China is 3rd behind the USA and Japan for luxury good purchases. Probably as many middle class Chinese as there are Americans (USA).
  • Reply 17 of 40
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    Ignorance is bliss, eh?



    The article says the high-end smartphone market in China is between 100 million and 125 million. Since the total population is 1.3bn, in the general case he is right.
  • Reply 18 of 40
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    True, the vast majority of China's population are dirt farmers. But the story doesn't claim that all Chinese will be snapping up iPhones. 100 to 125 million is a huge number of potential smartphone subscribers. But it's still only a tiny fraction of the overall population. It's just 8% to 9% of the PRC's 1.3 billion people.



    And I'm not sure any of those 1.3 billion would appreciate your comment about Android. Do you really think the Chinese can't tell the difference between iOS and Android? 5000 years of advanced culture, and you think that Western technology is all just magically wonderful to them?
  • Reply 19 of 40
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SockRolid View Post


    And I'm not sure any of those 1.3 billion would appreciate your comment about Android. Do you really think the Chinese can't tell the difference between iOS and Android?



    Android may do quite well in China. In the US, the advertising for Droid targets primarily male users. Since the gender ratio in China is approximately 125 male to 100 female, the Android hacker-like openness may be more appealing to Chinese males. I would expect Android to be as popular in China as it is elsewhere although apparently iPhone has sold well there so far. Time will tell.
  • Reply 20 of 40
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xSamplex View Post


    The Chinese are not rich enough to favor Apple, which is relatively costly hardware. China will be primarily a country of Android users. And frnakly, the differences between the interfaces are pretty trivial anyway.



    Just crawl back into your Android hole will you.
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