Apple iPhone Disappoints China
Mobile operator China Unicom is displeased with the official launch of Apple’s iPhone, according to AFP.
The few hundred people who braved the cold and the rain were not satisfied with the new iPhone handset when Unicom unveiled it in Beijing on October 30th.
Experts say the disabled WiFi, high price and wide range of other options has so far dogged sales in the worlds largest cell phone market of nearly 720 million users.
5,000 units were sold on the first weekend, but so far no figures have been released.
Apple declined to comment on the sales, said spokeswoman Natalie Harrison.
Bertram Lai, a CIMB-GK analyst based out of Hong Kong, says, "The market was obviously expecting more, based on what happened with the debut of iPhone in other countries."
"The introduction of a more expensive, less usable iPhone with fewer functions is not going to be very exciting for the market."
Unicom is the country’s second largest mobile operator and is offering a number of contract deals that bring the price of the iPhone down – but it still costs more than 500 dollars, out of range for a lot of consumers.
Without a subscription, the handset can cost up to 1,000 dollars.
Unicom will charge iPhone customers as much as 886 yuan ($130USD) a month if they subscribe to its network, the company said in September. That compares with Unicom’s 41.70 yuan ($6.11USD) monthly average revenue per user in the first half.
Unicom has high hopes for iPhone, hoping to sell five million handsets over three years to boost its revenue per user, but analysts are not so sure it can meet that goal.
"Prices will drop over time, helping China’s iPhone shipments reach 1 million to 2 million in Apple’s fiscal year, which ends next September," says Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffrey & Co. That’s out of a total of 36 million units, he said.
The iPhone also faces competition in China from Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and handsets equipped with OPhone software from China Mobile Ltd., the world’s biggest phone company by market value. The OPhone is based on Google Inc.’s Android technology.
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