“At the Xidan Joycity mall in Beijing in September, 17-year-old student Wu Kai waded through a packed Apple Store to buy iPhones for himself and his girlfriend. He also placed an order for two more for his parents,” Adam Satariano reports for Bloomberg Businessweek. “His family already has just about every other Apple gadget — a Mac desktop and laptop, an iPad mini, and, soon, the new bigger-screen iPad Pro. ‘Apple products are becoming family members,’ he said.”
“Chinese customers such as Wu have helped Apple largely avoid the decline that’s affected its smartphone rivals,” Satariano reports. “The question is how long Apple can sustain its pace amid China’s economic slowdown.”
Satariano reports, “Channing Smith, managing director at Capital Advisors, which owns Apple stock, says the company may see growth tail off in the short term, but he has faith in services such as Apple TV, Apple Music, and Apple Pay becoming more valuable with time.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple makes aspirational products. Apple has plenty of headroom even in slow-growing, or even non-growing markets, thanks to Windows and Android switchers.
Smart consumers only buy “low end” products once, by accident, and the next time Zunes are off the buy list.
For some, the 1st mobile phone has to be cheap.
The next mobile phone has to work well.
Yes, Microsoft’s Zune was ‘de-turd’….
“Economic slowdown” usually affects lower middle class and down. Apple’s user base mainly consists of the opposite as many, many studies have shown. Those who group Apple’s fortunes in with everyone else don’t understand this simple little fact.
Furthermore, most of Apple’s user base consists of people who eschew the traditional meaning of value as inexpensive. Instead they place the value of a product in everything else that matters; experience, support, quality, etc.
Amazing how people are freaking out about China. They should freak out about the US first. We are about to hit $20 trillion in debt, we are more divided than at any other time since our Civil War, wackos are running rampant killing people all over the place, and our moral compass is just about gone. The founders are turning in their graves, in horror of what they see our Country turning into.
Everything considered, China is just fine. They are on track to become the number one economy in the world, their students are kicking the shit out of our students – the future. And it won’t be long before they also become the number one military force in the world, as we continue to shrink our own military, and as we retreat from the world, leaving a mighty mess behind. Hate me if you want to, but that’s what we get after 8 years of unchecked liberal policies and community organizing.
And here’s the thing, what other American company has been as successful as Apple has been in China? Google? Amazon? Microsoft? I can’t believe the valuations Wall Street is giving Amazon and Google; companies with no stakes in China. Even here, Apple is going where the puck is going – China.
Ah, and one more thing, Liberal Arts education and common core – it’s just bull shit. Just wanted to say that. I feel better now.
Yes, as long as we elect representatives who don’t believe in governing, working for the benefit of their donors, and ignoring the needs of their constituents, things will continue to go down hill. A lot of bridges, roads, and yes, education could have been improved with the money we threw away on disrupting the Middle East to profit some unscrupulous politicians.
It’s time voters woke up and voted for their actual personal interests, and stopped being conned into voting for slogans and breast beating politicos who definitely don’t have their best interests in mind.
That’s democracy’s weakest link, disengaged voters who think things will get better if they simply trust some charlatan with their purse. When that doesn’t work out they don’t blame the politician. They blame government. Government is what we make it. If we elect crooks, we get corruption.
Apple’s next quarter will be given the same treatment it was given the last quarter. It will be repeated how no one in China has any money for Apple products and how investors should avoid Apple like a plague and I’m willing to bet Apple’s stock will go down again. Apple is a Wall Street joke. People think telling shareholders to sell Apple stock is like a public service announcement.
Look at how Qualcomm fell like a rock. I never heard Wall Street say a thing about Qualcomm’s declining revenue in advance, yet… BOOM! No one was running around telling investors to sell Qualcomm before earnings like they rage on about selling Apple. There are plenty of companies struggling but it’s Apple that keeps getting the bad press. Every little thing in the world is going to affect Apple’s earnings so dump the stock now. Analysts kept saying because China’s stock market was in turmoil, no consumers had any money to buy iPhones. Wall Street lies, as usual. They got away with before and they’ll get away with it again. Apple is always being targeted as the company who will lose in every scenario and investors believe it.