Apple Inc. unveiled two new iPhones on Tuesday, including the low-end iPhone 5C which only costs $99(U.S) on a two year contract. However, iPhone 5C is not that cheap considering the price in China.
In China, there are really great domestic mobile phone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, which also has great quality and wonderful performance, more importantly, they are only 800~1200 RMB ($100~200). If we compare that with the price of iPhone 5C, which is 4488 RMB ($640), we can easily find that iPhone 5C is not “cheap” at all. Before the iPhone 5C is released, many people estimated it to be under 3000RMB which is affordable for most people in China, and it proves to be a nice “dream” ultimately. In addition, iPhone 5S is 5288 RMB ($760), which is just 800 RMB ($100)more expensive! According to the reviews on the Chinese Internet media, many Chinese people are disappointed at the price of iPhone5C and they would rather pay 800RMB more to buy an iPhone5S with faster speed and has a fingerprint scanner built into it.
My analysis shows that on the one hand, Apple Inc. is aware of the very big potential in Chinese market and that’s why Apple tried to release the cheap version of iPhone to compete with other phones running on the platform of android. On the other hand, Apple still does not want to give up the profit, as a public company, it must ensure the profit for the shareholders, so it has to put iPhone5C to a such high price which is not considered to be “cheap” unless buy a two-year contract.
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