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The Iphone in China - Will Apple Connect With The World's Biggest Mobile Market - Knowledge at Wharton
The Iphone in China - Will Apple Connect With The World's Biggest Mobile Market - Knowledge at Wharton
Global launches can be rocky, as Apple knows well. Last year, the company
introduced its iPhone in India, but instead of the throngs of consumers seen
at launch events in the U.S., the journalists assigned to cover the rollout
reportedly outnumbered the customers. According to experts, the problems
included a lack of marketing and a price tag set too high for Indian
consumers. Now, as Apple prepares for an October launch of the iPhone in
China in cooperation with service provider China Unicom, many are
wondering if it will face similar hang-ups in the world's largest cell phone
market.
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2/28/24, 10:45 AM The iPhone in China: Will Apple Connect with the World's Biggest Mobile Market? - Knowledge at Wharton
MARKETING
Global launches can be rocky, as Apple knows well. Last year, the
company introduced its iPhone in India, but instead of the throngs of
consumers seen at launch events in the U.S., the journalists assigned
to cover the rollout reportedly outnumbered the customers.
According to experts, the problems included a lack of marketing and
a price tag set too high for Indian consumers. Now, as Apple prepares
for an October launch of the iPhone in China in cooperation with
service provider China Unicom, many are wondering if it will face
similar hang-ups in the world’s largest cell phone market, which has
more than 700 million subscribers.
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2/28/24, 10:45 AM The iPhone in China: Will Apple Connect with the World's Biggest Mobile Market? - Knowledge at Wharton
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2/28/24, 10:45 AM The iPhone in China: Will Apple Connect with the World's Biggest Mobile Market? - Knowledge at Wharton
When Apple launched the iPhone in India last August, one reason it
didn’t initially gain traction was the absence of any marketing
buildup — or “big splash” — like the device had when it was first
launched in the U.S. So far, that’s not been the case in China. Philip
M. Nichols, a Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics,
noticed on recent trips to China that the hype was starting to build.
“You cannot go into [French supermarket chain store] Carrefour in
Beijing right now without getting iPhone advertising right in your
face,” says Nichols, who visited twice in August. “They are really
advertising the heck out of it.”
Nichols is not sure how much the advertising will translate into
sales. “We think of China as a never-ending fountain of revenue, but
there are far more people in China who cannot afford this
technology than there are those who can.”
The Chinese penchant for style does not always favor the most
expensive item, however. Wharton marketing professor John Wesley
Hutchinson learned this from a project that one of his students did
in the late 1990s in China about Windows CE, a stripped-down
version of Microsoft Windows designed for handhelds and other
devices. At the time, devices with Windows CE were arguably the
most functional but somewhat “clunkier” than others in terms of
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Industry Dynamics
Price was a considerable sticking point when the iPhone made its launch in India. At the time of the
launch, the 8GB version cost $710 while the 16GB iPhone was priced at $825. The reason for the steep
price tag is that in India, unlike in the U.S., cell phone service providers do not subsidize handsets. In
the U.S., the iPhone is sold exclusively through AT&T, which subsidizes the phone in exchange for a
long-term contract. Most mobile phones in the U.S. are subsidized by carriers, that lock customers
But in countries like India, where the average revenue per user (ARPU) for cell phone subscribers is
considerably lower than in the U.S. and users tend to rely on prepaid phone cards, carriers cannot
recoup the cost of the device through contracts. Similarly, in China, a large percentage of mobile
users use prepaid phones and SIM cards that can be transferred easily from one phone to another.
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China Unicom has not announced whether the iPhone will be sold with a contract or not, which
would certainly affect its pricing. In Hong Kong, for example, the price of a 3GS iPhone ranges from
$5,388 to $6,288 Hong Kong dollars ($695 to $811 in U.S. dollars) because the phones are sold
Apple may also be at a slight disadvantage in China because of its partnering with China Unicom. “In
the U.S., Apple managed to land a deal with AT&T,” notes Kartik Hosanagar, Wharton professor of
operations and information management. “In contrast, in China, Apple could not get a deal with
China Mobile, which has the largest share of the market…. So an important factor is that the share of
the market that Apple is getting through China Unicom is much smaller.” China Mobile had 497.7
million customers at the end of July, while China Unicom had only 141.1 million. China Unicom,
however, is the only one of China’s three telecom operators to operate the W-CDMA technology that
Competing Devices
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The competition is all the more difficult for Apple since the brand is
not as well known in China as it is in the U.S., Eliashberg points out.
Apple’s iPod, for example, has not been as popular in China as in the
United States because mainstream Chinese tend to choose lower-
end MP3 players, according to CCID. Apple opened its first store in
Beijing in July 2008, but the “cult” that surrounds Apple in places
like the U.S. has yet to grow strong.
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Pricing It Right
Zhang sees price and brand maintenance as Apple’s biggest challenges. “It would be very tempting
to lower the price and sell to a lot of people. If you do that you’ll lose the brand equity you have up to
this point,” he says. Once the iPhone is widely available in China, “that’s probably going to destroy
the exclusivity somewhat. They have to manage that transition process well … [so as] not to destroy
the brand image and cachet that is associated with the phone.”
Zhang thinks Apple and China Unicom should keep the price of the
iPhone above 1400 yuan (about $205) to maintain its allure. The
price is high — about a month’s salary for a recent college grad. “The
iPhone is not meant for the mass market and I’d be surprised if it is
sold as a mass market product,” says Zhang. “It will most likely target
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2/28/24, 10:45 AM The iPhone in China: Will Apple Connect with the World's Biggest Mobile Market? - Knowledge at Wharton
Hosanagar agrees. “[Apple is] not just managing its revenues in one
market; it’s managing its brand as such. Apple’s margins on the
iPhone are just fantastic; I don’t think that Apple would want to
compromise on that.”
Both Zhang and Hosanagar point out that if the phone is priced too
low, a reverse market could occur. “If the iPhone is over-subsidized
in one market, especially with no contract, clearly people would buy
a lot of it in one market and ship it to another,” Hosanagar says. “So
the question is: How will it work in China? To what extent will China
Unicom subsidize the phone? Is there a price point that clearly
works?”
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