Apple's iPhone loses ground in 'urban China' for first time since 2014 - report
Apple's smartphone marketshare in "urban China" dropped 3.2 percentage points year-over-year during the spring quarter of 2016 -- marking the company's first such decline in the region since August 2014, according to research data published on Wednesday.
Some sales were ceded to local giant Huawei, which reclaimed the top spot in the Chinese market with a 24.4 percent share, said analytics firm Kantar Worldpanel. Two other local brands -- Meizu and Oppo -- also grew, each taking an approximate 6 percent share. Apple held second place with 22.2 percent.
It's not immediately clear what the research group means by the term "urban China," but Kantar nevertheless suggested that the iPhone SE, which shipped in China on March 31, could potentially revive Apple's fortunes.
"There are also significant numbers of potential buyers, particularly in China, who may not be able to afford the high price of a flagship iPhone but may find that the iPhone SE lets them take their first step into the Apple ecosystem," the firm wrote.
The SE is still an expensive proposition for many Chinese -- starting at 3,288 yuan, or roughly $507 -- but substantially cheaper than an iPhone 6s, which costs at least 5,288 yuan, or $815.
For Apple maintaining Chinese marketshare is crucial. Assuming sales persist, the region is poised to eclipse the Americas in terms of revenue.
Some sales were ceded to local giant Huawei, which reclaimed the top spot in the Chinese market with a 24.4 percent share, said analytics firm Kantar Worldpanel. Two other local brands -- Meizu and Oppo -- also grew, each taking an approximate 6 percent share. Apple held second place with 22.2 percent.
It's not immediately clear what the research group means by the term "urban China," but Kantar nevertheless suggested that the iPhone SE, which shipped in China on March 31, could potentially revive Apple's fortunes.
"There are also significant numbers of potential buyers, particularly in China, who may not be able to afford the high price of a flagship iPhone but may find that the iPhone SE lets them take their first step into the Apple ecosystem," the firm wrote.
The SE is still an expensive proposition for many Chinese -- starting at 3,288 yuan, or roughly $507 -- but substantially cheaper than an iPhone 6s, which costs at least 5,288 yuan, or $815.
For Apple maintaining Chinese marketshare is crucial. Assuming sales persist, the region is poised to eclipse the Americas in terms of revenue.
Comments
Personally, I love FaceTime audio. So much better than regular phone calls. Same with iMessage.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/iphone/iphone-6s-vs-nexus-5x-3627323/
"Urban China" is just a new way for some stupid analysis to cut the data in a way to tell a story line they want people to hear. As most people do who have no appreciate for the real numbers (sorry made up number since no company other than Apple publishes their actual number) they will ignore the statement about "Urban China" and say oh Huawei is beating everyone in China.
I like how they say that apple lost ground this spring, I think Sping is only 3 week in and they already lost for the entire spring.
In the US, Apple has always lost ground in sales in the spring for many years when Samsung and others released their phones, except last year.
With the early release of phones in China, we got the exact same fracking thing.
Also wonder how fracks earth can they get spring numbers for 2.5 weeks, not even sure Apple would have those numbers!
So, basically this thing is a narrative building piece of crap.
And again: http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/03/huge-iphone-6-sales-drive-ios-to-40-smartphone-market-share-in-australia-us-uk-japan
AI uses them as a basis for a story here, with no mention or warning of this agenda you imply: http://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/187514/iphone-share-strong-in-europe-other-markets-softening-in-us-kantar-study-suggests
In other words they only have an 'agenda' when you don't like what they are reporting.
None of the other things you mention pertain to my comment because none of your points has anything to do with 'feature sets' which was the emphasis of my remarks. I never said buying an Android is smart or better in any way other than price and that was my conclusion as to one possible reason people are attracted to Android.
Jeez, people get so riled up. Unless you unequivocally denounce Android as complete garbage you get flamed around here. If Android was complete garbage it would not exist. Now with the obligatory car analogy. If Android was complete garbage it would have gone the way of the Yugo. It may be more like a Hyundai, but just because I drive a German luxury car doesn't mean that a Hyundai is complete garbage. It carries the groceries and the kids just as well as my luxury car and because it is less expensive there are people who consider that, among other things, in their purchasing decision.
Still, I did see a heck of a lot of iPhones when on public transportation there.
Android is closer to someone trying to build a Porsche with the spare parts from a Hyundai;
if they didn't try to do that I'd be perfectly fine with them being the Hyundai of phones.
They're a perfectly fine, if unexciting option, like eating corn beef, or spam in a can ;-).
Yes, I'm embarrassed, I sometimes do that :-).
I am not really addressing much about the quality of the hardware, mostly just OSs. The hardware differences is where you get into the price disparity, but when comparing just Android to iOS, the similarities are far greater than the differences.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/30/11330892/fbi-google-android-unlocking-phone-court-order
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/03/30/472391092/apple-google-ordered-to-unlock-smartphones-since-at-least-2008
As far as security is concerned, the FBI may have contacted Google, we don't know. What we do know is they didn't need Apple to create a backdoor, so perhaps the security is not as good as you think. The general public never really concerned themselves about the security of their phone anyway until perhaps recently with the news about hacking the SB terrorist's phone. And, apparently they don't worry too much about Google harvesting their data either because they continue to use Google, Gmail, services, search, advertising in the millions.
You are trying to read too much into my comments. I'm simply exploring various scenarios where a Chinese consumer may decide to purchase an Android phone over an iPhone. It has nothing to do with ultra geeky technical reasons why one is better than the other. The Chinese consumer realizes that the iPhone is the best you can get, but for reasons of their own they may decide to buy an Android instead. I'm not being an Android apologist. I could never see myself using one. I'm all Apple from computers to phones and everything in between.
Just wanted to correct some inaccuracies in the post above:
https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en-GB
Android updates
Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 6, Nexus 5, Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 9 and Nexus 10 devices get the latest version of Android directly from Google. These devices will receive Android version updates for at least two years from when the device first became available on the Google Store.
Once an update is available, it can take up to two weeks for it to reach your device. Based on your operator, it may take longer than two weeks after release to get an update.
Security patches
Nexus devices will also receive updates for security issues documented in ourPublic Nexus Security Bulletins for at least the following periods:
You can see when your device last received a security patch:
Android is still not smooth even on the S7, which is embarrassing to Google (not Samsung), and yes I've actually used it.
That things like encryption, which is very old hat for IOS, barely arrived now also tells you that they are quite different.
If they are "alike" it is only superficially. The difference comes from the fact Apple has control of the whole stack and Android does not; that has much impact on what can be done in the Android OS.
I'm not dogmatic though, it has its use. I laugh though at people calling it open; that's a total crock nowadays even if initially it could be argued.