AppleInsider Staff
Following years of race-to-the-bottom pricing in China, the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — Â which introduced larger displays to Apple's lineup — Â prompted an apparent shift in consumer habits that has seen the average selling price of a smartphone jump by nearly 40 percent in the Asian nation.
Apple's latest handsets have topped Chinese sales charts in each quarter in which they've been available, analyst Ben Bajarin noted last week. This has led to a rise in the overall ASP, which has generally been dragged down by the wide availability and popularity of low-cost smartphones, many of which carry sub-$100 price tags.
In the third quarter of 2014, smartphone ASP in China came in at just $192, according to data gathered by IDC and cited by Bloomberg. That rose to $263 in the first quarter of 2015, a 37-percent leap.
The higher figure still lags the global average ASP of $297, but it's a significant increase in a country where local players still largely compete on price.
The achievement is even more impressive when viewed through the lens of overall market size, which contracted by 4 percent in the first quarter of this year. The first such contraction for the Chinese smartphone market in six years still saw Apple's sales jump by 62 percent year over year.
"Smartphones are becoming increasingly saturated in China," Kitty Fok, managing director at IDC China, said in May. "China is oftentimes thought of as an emerging market but the reality is that the vast majority of phones sold in China today are smartphones, similar to other mature markets like the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Japan. Just like these markets, convincing existing users as well as feature phone users to upgrade to new smartphones will now be the key to further growth in the China market."
Malcolm Owen
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7 Comments
I guess it takes an Apple share holder to see the upside of that! :D
Just like these markets, convincing existing users as well as feature phone users to upgrade to new smartphones will now be the key to further growth in the China market.
IMHO, now is the time when Apple will increase the speed of introducing original technology that cannot be easily copied and given away cheaply by competitors.
All the jackass analysts claimed the iPhone would be totally commoditized in 2015 but I don't see that happening at all. It appears to me that consumers are willing to pay a premium price to own an iPhone and as long as Apple continues to put out a high-quality product, offer good customer service and value-added services in the iOS ecosystem, sales should stay strong for Apple. The Chinese seem to like Tim Cook so that helps a lot. Wall Street is already saying there's not much more smartphone growth left in China and they're claiming Apple is going to fall short in India due to the higher cost of iPhones. Damn, Wall Street keeps changing the rules on Apple.
In almost every new movie I watch, the characters are using Apple products, iPhones, MacBook Pros, iMacs and iPads. Some cover over the logo, but others display it proudly. That has to mean something good.
[quote name="digitalclips" url="/t/186955/average-selling-price-of-smartphones-in-china-jumps-37-thanks-to-popularity-of-apples-iphone#post_2741755"]I guess it takes an Apple share holder to see the upside of that! :D[/quote] Once again Apple skated to where no one else expected the puck to be. I have to be wondering how much the IBM partnership may be feeding "big data" to Apple to even further sharpen its ability to see future trends.
Feeling upbeat about Apple's next quarterly earnings. Whereas the summer has traditionally been a cooling-off period as iPhone buyers await the September release of new models, I'm seeing signs of continued (a) volume and (b) ASP increase. Also worth noting: AAPL stock has been basically flat since they announced blowout results LAST quarter; I'm wondering if a new quarter of great results will finally cause the stock to pop again.