China Mobile sets prices as it enters battle on iPhones
By Grace Cao, Hong Kong Standard - Thursday, January 16, 2014
China Mobile (0941) will start selling the latest iPhone in the mainland tomorrow, joining a price war
with its two rivals, China Unicom (0762) and China Telecom (0728), which launched the smartphone
last year.The new iPhone will be offered at a two-year contract price of 5,488 yuan (HK$7,038) at
China Mobile stores with a package price as low as 138 yuan per month, the company said
yesterday.
The basic 5S model will be priced at 5,288 yuan, while the 64-gigabyte 5S will sell for 6,888 yuan.
The 5C model will be offered at 4,488 yuan for the 16GB model.
Two subsidy plans will be available for upgrades of existing packages to the faster 4G ones.
Pre-orders for the latest iPhone hit 1.2 million units during December 25 to January 13, said
chairman Xi Guohua. He met Apple's chief executive Tim Cook in Beijing yesterday ahead of
the launch, CNBC reported.
It is reported that a total of 1.4 million units - assembled by FIH Mobile (2038) - had been delivered
to China Mobile, the world's largest mobile network, last week.
China Unicom and China Telecom have trimmed iPhone retail prices to compete for customers.
China Telecom cut as much as 15 percent of the contract price of the 5S to 4,488 yuan, while
China Unicom gave a 7 percent discount on the same model to 5,099 yuan.
Analysts are bearish on China Mobile's cooperation with Apple, saying the telco is expected to spend
more on subsidies to boost sales this year.
China Mobile's earnings are expected to decrease by 10 percent this year, out of which 7 percent will
be the result of subsidies, Citi and Mizuho Financial said earlier.
Meanwhile, the former chairman of China Mobile Group's Guangdong branch, Xu Long, was investigated
by the local disciplinary inspectors, an official website announced yesterday. He was expelled from the
Communist Party over bribe taking.
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