The iPhone X is all but guaranteed to carry Apple’s biggest ever iPhone price tag, and that could severely damage its chances of success in China, a new report claims.
With the rumored $1,000 asking price being roughly twice the average Chinese monthly salary, it is likely that the price will see the iPhone’s Chinese market share continue its decline.
The Greater China region made up roughly 18 percent of Apple’s iPhone sales in the quarter ending July. This was down 10 percent compared to that period one year earlier — despite the iPhone growing in virtually every other region in the world.
In other words, interest in the iPhone has declined ever since the debut of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus thanks to Apple’s China Mobile deal a few years back. That’s unlikely to be helped by an extremely pricey next-gen handset. On popular Chinese social media service Weibo, mentions of the next-gen iPhone are higher than comparable mentions of the iPhone 7 before its launch, but lower than those for the iPhone 6 prior to its debut.
While the iPhone X is supposed to be Apple’s biggest iPhone refresh in years, it seems that increased competition from local brands, alongside Apple’s higher prices, may be hurting the iPhone in China. “Apple really needs to launch a very innovative product this time around,” Mo Jia, Shanghai-based analyst at Canalys, tells Reuters. Even with this being the case, however, “it has its work cut out.”
