By Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh
BEIJING (Reuters) – Apple’s iPhone 15 received a mixed response in China’s third-largest market on Wednesday, with many online users liking its faster chip and better gaming capabilities, while others preferred Huawei’s new smartphone.
China remains important for the US tech giant, which unveiled its new iPhone lineup on Tuesday. The company holds the leading position in China’s premium smartphone market, partly due to the destruction of Huawei Technologies’ smartphone business by US export controls, but it has also come under scrutiny following the launch of the iPhone 15.
Shares of Apple and its suppliers suffered losses last week after reports that Chinese government agencies and state companies were restricting employees from using phones and that Huawei launched a new smartphone with an advanced chip. Which was seen as a comeback attempt by the Chinese firm.
Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 15 on Wednesday attracted intense discussion online, as new models have in the past. The new phone will go on sale in China online on September 15 on Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace and in stores on September 22.
Topics discussing the new launch were viewed 380 million times on social media platform Weibo, with over 800,000 discussions including posts, comments and likes on the iPhone 15.
Many praised the iPhone 15 Pro’s new 3 nanometer chip and Apple’s promise that console-quality games like “Resident Evil 4 Remake” can be played on the device, which appealed to China’s army of mobile gamers.
But many social media users had misgivings about choosing the American brand over a domestically made rival, especially after state media portrayed the launch of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro earlier this month as a victory for China over US sanctions. I appreciated.
A survey on the social media platform by Chinese news portal Sina asking participants whether they would buy the Mate 60 or the iPhone 15 received 61,000 votes for the Huawei device, while 24,000 votes were cast for the iPhone 15.
Comparisons to how the Mate 60 Pro could make calls and send texts via satellite, while the iPhone 15 was only capable of satellite texting, also generated significant discussion.
One user wrote, “The iPhone 15 can only send SOS messages via satellite, using the previous generation technology already deployed in Huawei’s Mate 60, which supports full satellite calling.”
China’s smartphone market, like the global sector, is in a recession and analysts have warned that this, coupled with the country’s slowing economy, could impact iPhone 15 sales.
Apple’s third-party retailers began offering rare discounts of up to 10% on the iPhone 14 Pro in February, which helped sales but could dampen demand for the latest series, analysts said.
“This does not bode well for the upcoming 15 series as some demand has been met prior to launch,” said Archie Zhang, research analyst at Counterpoint. “Prior to Huawei’s surprise launch, we had estimated that Apple’s sales in China in Q3 and Q4 would be flat or slightly weaker than last year.”
Will Wong, an analyst at industry research group IDC, recently looked at public sector developments and Huawei posing a challenge to Apple.
“Sales (of the iPhone 15) are not going to be easy, especially since Chinese consumers are either being cautious about spending or focusing their attention on leisure or travel,” he said.
IDC expects Apple’s share of China’s premium phone market to gradually decline due to increasing competition from Huawei.
In the first half of 2023, Apple had 67% market share for phones priced above $600, followed by Huawei with 15.6%.
($1 = 7.2825 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Yelin Mo in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Josh Yeh in Hong Kong; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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