Apple is teaming up with Chinese payments company Ant Financial Services Group, along with several local banks, to offer local customers interest-free financing on iPhones in China (via Reuters). Apple is continuously looking to boost smartphone sales in China, and this appears to be the latest move in the company's long-term plan to do so.
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On its China website, Apple explains that customers can pay 271 yuan ($40.31) per month for the iPhone XR, and 362 yuan ($53.87) per month for the iPhone XS. If customers trade in older models of iPhone, they'll get cheaper installment plans.
In total, customers buying an iPhone worth a minimum of 4,000 yuan (around $595) will qualify for interest-free financing that can be paid over three, six, nine, 12, or 24 months.
Apple has always struggled with iPhone sales in China, and according to Strategy Analytics, the company shipped an estimated 2.5 million fewer iPhones in China in 2018 than in 2017. The company's products have historically been categorized as too expensive for the China market, losing out to low-cost alternatives from popular local rivals like OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi.
In recent weeks, reports have suggested that Apple is seeing improved iPhone sales in China thanks to recent price cuts to the iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, and older models. According to Feng, data sourced from Alibaba suggests that iPhone sales on the site have increased by 76 percent in China since January 13, 2019.
The launch of China's limited-time promotion follows similar offers that have rolled out to a few regions around the world, including a trade-up promo in the United States. In emails sent to customers and on its website, Apple encourages shoppers to upgrade to an iPhone XR from $449 or iPhone XS from $699, with the trade in of an iPhone 7 Plus or iPhone 8.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)I've never seen no many promos with new iPhones... Signs of the times...
Maybe they should just consider... not pricing them so prohibitively expensive?It's not just a pricing problem Apple has in China. Few people on this forum want to acknowledge how good the Chinese offerings have gotten and how well they integrate with the services and social media China has.
You are completely correct.There was a person on this forum last year who is living in China and they said Apple services and the cloud don't work well there. I can't verify that but we have read numerous times on this very site how Apple's policies have clashed with how Chinese consumers actually use services.
And on top of that, the latest Huawei flagships have specs and features that are a genuine threat to Apple and Samsung offerings even outside of China. What they're doing with cameras is amazing. I am no fan of Huawei, (quite the opposite) so it's with trepidation that I keep an eye on how far they've come on their own (on the backs of filched IP). My husband has tested a P30 Pro and it's last year's model with performance that even this year's phones will be hard pressed to beat. In terms of all around performance it is rock solid and the battery life is insane. Apple and Samsung really need to match or exceed what Huawei is doing. The race is on.
Apple's processors are the best, but iOS isn't dazzling the people it needs to win over. Android just doesn't suck enough to lose its Asian audience. And they don't have any privacy anyway over in China, so it's not like Apple can use privacy as a selling point there.
They just don't have anything the Chinese want at any price Apple is likely willing to accept. And the Chinese manufacturers offer any phone color anybody could possibly want, even in crazy gradient effects. So I think the recent traitorous attempt to rebrand Product Red to "China Red" isn't going to help anything and in fact gives bad optics here.
There's actually much Apple could still do to expand its market share in Europe, other Asian regions, and even here in the USA. Perhaps they need to start thinking about doing just that while they figure out a new China strategy that offers Chinese consumers something truly substantive over the competition.
I frowned upon Huawei, but when my carrier offered me the Mate 20 Lite -which doesn't include all of their flagship phones tech- and showed all the features that basically cover what the iPhone XR offers, followed by the phrase "For 6,000 pesos" (about 300 dollars) I immediately accepted the phone. Beautiful "optical" finish that looks way better in person than on photos, amazing AI dual lens 20+2MP photos on both front and back cameras, EMUI 8.2 (Huawei's custom Android flavor,) USB-C connector, dual sim, expandable to 256GB via flash card... and to top it all, battery can last up to 3 and a half days if you enable extreme energy saver mode when you go to bed... and the list goes on regarding software features.
It screamed backup phone at me in the beginning. Now it replaced my iPhone SE completely, even though I don't like big screens nor Android. Those phones are so good at very attractive prices that I fell for one, and like you said, that's what Apple is facing in China.
I've never seen no many promos with new iPhones... Signs of the times...
That’s so true, this is what happens when I go to the Apple site here in Australia. Instead of nice flashy Apple products being displayed, you get this....