The China Scene ...
Beginning this fiscal year we’re reorganizing the presentation of our results to provide greater transparency. First, we’ve established a new operating segment of Greater China given the very significant contribution of that region to our overall business. We define Greater China to include Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. ... On a sequential basis iPhone sales grew 78% over the September quarter’s results. That’s over 3.5 times IDC’s latest published projection for sequential growth of the overall market resulting in iPhone market share growth. We experienced strong iPhone growth in each of our geographic segments most notably Greater China where iPhone sales more than doubled year-over-year. ... In terms of the [iPhone] geographic distribution, we saw our highest growth in China and it was into the triple digits, which was higher than the market there. ... If you look at our total China, total Greater China, which would include our retail stores that are in China. Our revenues were $7.3 billion in the quarter. So, this is incredibly high, it’s up over 60% year-on-year. - Tim Cook: Apple CEO; January 23, 2013 -
Hello tinaqm,
Thanks for checking in.
<< "The iPhone is presently nearly insignificant in China, so it is not iPhone relevant, really." ... China could provide otherwise significant growth opportunity for Apple. Lumia 920T is indeed the talk of street in China. Can it take China by storm? probably not, at least not for now due to shortage - sold out few hours each time after phones arrived at stores. We shall see how far can such momentum can carry. >>
The individual that posted here that "the iPhone is presently nearly insignificant in China, so it is not iPhone relevant" is obviously misinformed. The italicized statements above from Tim Cook's recent earnings CC are only a portion of what Tim had to say about the significance of mainland China to Apple on the call.
Apple has obviously done quite well on the smaller two of mainland China's three major mobile wireless networks which are not really all that small ... particularly China Telecom (formerly China Unicom). Their impressive sales numbers are all the more impressive given that China Mobile, the country’s biggest mobile operator, does not yet distribute iPhones.
Historically and until relatively recently Nokia with a broad range of quality phones manufactured at their two facilities in mainland China did exceptionally well across all price tiers from Series 30 entry level phones to Series 40 feature phones to mid tier Symbian lower end smartphones to the high end Symbian N-Series. Nokia 2G GSM or GSM/GPRS/EGPRS and 3G WCDMA/HSPA Symbian phones were the leading smartphones in China.
In the recent year Nokia was especially hard hit across almost all of Asia and Latin America but especially China prompting several Nokia top management changes in APAC and at the Leadership Team level. Nokia's Q4 numbers in China were atrocious.
Today entry level Series 40 and the Series 40 Ashas, particularly the new full-touch models which will compete with the lower end Android smartphones (both branded or whitebox) produced by Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese manufacturers are significant to Nokia's regaining share in China but the full range of Lumia's are also especially significant in the worlds largest mobile device market.
People sometimes forget that China has an extremely flush upper tier population and the segment of its population that can justify the TCO of high end subsidized Lumias is probably as large people wise (as opposed to percentage wise) as the equivalent population of Europe. That is a big market and one Samsung Nokia and Apple will all be chasing even as Huawei and ZTE move their Android and/or Windows Phone ranges upstream.
Cheers,
- Eric - |
