“Apple is expected to say this week that it has sold more iPhones in China than on its home turf in the US for the first time last year, highlighting the shifting power balance of the smartphone market,” Tim Bradshaw reports for The Financial Times.
“Analysts estimate that the US tech group reached the turning point in iPhone sales after expanding its presence in China last year via a deal with China Mobile, the country’s largest network operator, and after the release of the latest iPhone 6 in the country in October,” Bradshaw reports. “Tim Cook, chief executive, had said in 2013 that he expected China to eventually overtake the US as Apple’s single largest source of revenue.”
“Analysts at UBS estimate that China accounted for 36 per cent of iPhone shipments in the most recent quarter, compared with 24 per cent for the US. During the same period last year, 29 per cent of units were sold in the US and 22 per cent were in China, UBS said,” Bradshaw reports. “‘It’s already been a good year, building up to the climax of this quarter,’ said Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies, referring to Apple’s momentum in the world’s largest smartphone market. ‘It leads to a lot more optimism for China… Their potential headroom in China is higher than it is here [in the US].'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
“Their (Apple’s) potential headroom in China is higher than it is here [in the US].’
Understatement, at least. As I’ve noted, China’s middle class is now larger than the entire population of the US.
Apple is one of the few business to succeed in selling products in countries where historically it has been hard for Western companies.
The fact that the Apple iPhone is the #1 best selling phone in Japan is a miracle in itself but to also sell so many phones in China is superb.
I think it is the combination of being a well made product and first in class that drives consumers to buy them. I bet a lot of the new purchasers previously had a cheap Android smartphone and now want the real thing.
And iPhones are selling well in South Korea, too.
The basic 4g/LTE upgrades mandate better phones. While the lower income population may be content with the “Apple wanna-be” phone; the middle to upper classes all ASPIRE/DEMAND APPLE!!
To be caught with a Android phone is to lose face………..
Android ownership = mark of shame, dishonor & doofusness
I assume that you are providing rationale for increasing iPhone sales in China. But i fail to see how you determined that the lower income population are “content” with low-cost Android phones. They may not have the money to purchase an iPhone, but that does not mean that they do not want one.
China middle class is bigger than entire USA population.
That would make the USA middle class 1/10 th size of the China middle class.
Where are you getting that the middle class in the US is 1/10 the size of the population?
USA having only 1/10 th of the China middle class was being very kind.
You must figure in that the China middle class is not as rich as an almost non existing American middle class.
I have a yearly household income of over $200,000. In Canada, I am in the top 10% as far as income is concerned.
uh, there is no American middle class.
Well where am I then? I’m not rich but I’m not poor either. I’m kind of in the “middle”. Some of the really rich may consider me poor, while some of my relatives consider me rich. Oh, the dilema!!
you have a government job?
I knew the new headquarters was shaped like a flying saucer for a reason, it’s becuse it IS a flying saucer and By 2020 it will be flying off to land in China. If you can’t bring jobs back to the home country just change your home country.
We make more iPhones than the US, too.
😉