Apple’s business in China is finally turning around, according to execs who say Cupertino’s troubles in the country might be a thing of the past.
“We feel positive about our trajectory,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during Tuesday’s earnings call, noting that the company’s “year-over-year revenue performance in Greater China improved relative to the December quarter.”
Then Cook laid out four reasons why Apple’s “China problem” is going away.
The 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre is coming up this June, but you won’t hear anything about it on Apple Music.
Chinese journalists recently discovered that Apple Music’s Chinese service censored a song that mentions the 1989 pro-democracy protests where thousands of people were killed. The topic is extremely controversial for the Chinese Communist Party and it appears that Apple is just fine with blotting it out if that’s the price of doing business in China.
Federal agents recently busted two college students who allegedly made nearly $1 million by returning fake iPhones to Apple.
Officials charged Quran Juan and Yangyangg Zhou, both Chinese nationals attending college in Oregon, with participating in a counterfeit iPhone scam. The duo reportedly submitted more than 2,000 iPhones to Apple claiming, the devices were broken and wouldn’t power on. The fake iPhones were only worth about $30, allowing the scammers to pocket nearly $600 for each successful return, authorities said.
Apple has cut the prices on multiple devices in China. Prices on everything from iPhones and iPads to Macs and AirPods have been reduced by up to 6 percent.
The slashed prices comes a few months after Apple pinned declining revenue on lower than expected sales in China. Greater China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, accounts for around 15 percent of Apple’s revenue.
As countries, it’s fair to say that China and Taiwan aren’t exactly BFFs. For evidence of this, look no further than the recently released macOS 10.14.4. Eagle-eyed users in China have noticed that their Mac devices can no longer display the Taiwan flag emoji.
The flag ban can’t even be circumvented by changing the region in your Mac’s System Preferences.
Being an Apple supplier can be a curse as much as a blessing for some Chinese companies.
While earning Apple’s business can give a big boost to a company’s stock, a new study found that Apple’s suppliers saw their share prices drop significantly lower than Apple’s stock did during the recent iPhone sales slump.
Apple suppliers have taken a hit in revenue during early 2019 as a result of falling iPhone shipments. Analysts don’t expect a turnaround anytime soon with Apple’s smartphone still struggling to catch a break in China.
iPhone sales are down, especially in emerging markets. The reason is simple: Apple’s devices cost too darn much. And the solution is equally simple: Apple must make a new budget model. In short, it needs a successor to the iPhone SE to ensure short-term profits as well as long-term viability.
This device has to have a low, low price. Even if that means a phone so bare-bones that most Americans turn up their noses at it.
Chinese online retailers have slashed iPhone prices for the second time this year.
The discounts are an effort to boost sales in an important market, where Apple recently suffered a 20 percent decline year-on-year. The first iPhone price cuts were rolled out in January.
Slowing iPhone sales in China was a major concern for Apple. However, things may be back on the upswing, claims UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri.
According to Arcuri’s latest note to investors, Apple is clearing inventory in the country. This is partially thanks to price reductions. While it would be foolish to suggest that there won’t be more struggles, it seems that the worst could be behind Apple.
Apple has joined forces with Alipay in an effort to boost iPhone sales in China.
iPhone fans can now bag one of the company’s latest handsets with up to two years of interest-free finance. The loan allows customers to swap the costly upfront fee for much more affordable monthly payments. It’s available on purchases of 4,000 yuan (approx. $595) or more.
Can you imagine if the most popular app in the U.S. — more than Facebook, YouTube or WhatsApp — was an official White House app?
The idea sounds, frankly, crazy. But that’s more or less what’s happened in China, where the app currently ruling the App Store is one dedicated to President Xi Jinping.
Apple has cut iPhone prices in China to try and win back growth after falling demand for its smartphones. However, from the sound of things, the company isn’t totally sure this is going to be the guaranteed magic bullet it needs to turn things around.
In a new interview with NPR, Tim Cook strikes a note of caution when he says that, “We’ll see how that works out for us.”
Apple blamed falling smartphone sales in China for its weaker than anticipated holiday earnings last year, and now new data indicates that the iPhone suffered more than most in the East.
In fact, sales of Apple handsets fell twice as fast as the rest of the smartphone market as a whole.
Apple has increasingly focused on China as its future biggest market, but its future in the country may not be quite as rosy as once predicted.
Speaking at the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit, political scientist Ian Bremmer suggested that Apple won’t have much of a business in China “within five to 10 years max.” And it’s not Apple’s fault.
Qualcomm is revving up its legal battle with Apple. In a new court filing in Munich, Qualcomm demanded “significant fines” be put on the iPhone-maker for not complying with a previous court order.
Apple was barred from selling some iPhones in Germany at the end of 2018. The company pulled the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 at its retail stores, but Qualcomm is crying foul that other third-party shops still had units in stock.
Foxconn, which promised to create 13,000 jobs with a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin, won’t be producing state-of-the-art TV screens here as planned.
The news may not come as a big surprise to critics of the deal, which gave the iPhone maker the richest subsidy package in the state’s history. Foxconn has already forfeited some of those tax credits after it missed 2018 hiring goals.
Investors are eagerly waiting to see all the numbers from Apple’s 2018 holiday quarter during today’s earnings call. Based on early reports, some of the numbers might come in even lower than expected.
Gulp.
Apple already warned investors that iPhones sales during Q1 2019 came in lower than expected, mostly thanks to problems in Greater China. Even after lowering revenue guidance, the company still could pull out a few surprises. However, most analysts remain worried that the iPhone sales slump will continue into 2020.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri are set to get on the phone with investors at 2 p.m. Pacific today. Per usual, Cult of Mac will be here live-blogging all the action with up-to-the-minute analysis on all the important numbers.
Come join the fun:
The Chinese phone market cratered in the final quarter of 2018, but iPhone sales in the country did even worse.
This poor showing is primarily a result of the high prices Apple charges for its handsets, according to an industry analyst.
Never sell your organs for an iPhone.
Most of us don’t need that advice, but one Chinese man, aged just 25, is now bedridden with organ failure after selling his kidney to buy the latest Apple devices eight years ago.
Apple shells out a total of $35 million every year to buy 50 business class airline seats from San Francisco to Shanghai.
The numbers were shared by United Airlines, which revealed that Apple is the airline’s biggest customer at San Francisco International Airport. While Apple’s products are, famously, “designed by Apple in California,” the majority of its supply chain is based in China. Tim Cook has also talked about the importance of China as Apple’s second-biggest market.
The HomePod smart speaker is finally launching in China, Apple’s second-most important market. Having previously been teased on Apple’s China website for early 2019, the company revealed over the weekend that HomePod will go on sale on Friday, January 18.
It launched in the U.S. back in February 2018, and has since expanded to the U.K., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, and Spain.
As expected, Apple resellers have started cutting the price of the iPhone in China. Today, popular e-commerce platforms JD.com and Suning reduced the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone XR’s asking price — with some price tags dropping by as much as 22 percent.
For what it’s worth, the iPhone prices remain unchanged on Apple’s official website in China.
Sales of iPhones seem to be weaker than in previous years, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has an explanation: a drop in consumer spending in China.
The implication is that the slowdown in iPhone sales isn’t a result of anything Apple has done.
Apple has slashed the prices of certain iPhone models in China. Chinese iPhone vendors reportedly received the word from Apple that they can offer discounts on the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max.
Of these, the biggest price reduction amounts to around $66 off the price off the iPhone XR. Other iPhones are receiving price cuts of around $59.