On the first two days when Apple's newly released iPhone SE 2 became available for pre-order in China, e-commerce platforms in the country are racing with each other to offer big discounts.
Juhuasuan, Alibaba's group-buying and flash-sale platform, started offering the iPhone SE 2 on its platform on Saturday with discounts of up to 500 yuan (USD 70), marking a 15% off from Apple's pricing of 3,299 yuan (USD 466) for the 64GB version.
One day earlier on Friday, Apple started offering the device for pre-order on its Chinese website and e-commerce platform Pinduoduo was selling it for as low as 2,899 yuan.
China Securities News quoted Pinduoduo executives as saying that Pinduoduo specifically set up a new Apple mobile phone subsidy group to organize brands to formulate a joint subsidy strategy to ensure inventory.
A person in the mobile phone industry said that due to the spread of new coronaviruses overseas, the iPhone can still be sold only in the Chinese market. And China has always been an important market for Apple.
According to data from market research agency IDC, in 2019, Apple ’s iPhone shipped 32.8 million units in the Chinese market, with a market share of 8.9%, ranking fifth, but shipments fell 9.7% year-on-year.
IDC said that Apple has achieved a positive growth of 5.1% in the second half of 2019 through lower starting prices, product naming adjustments, increasing the proportion of online channels, and deep optimization of the experience of using multiple camera scenes.
Sun Yanbiao, the dean of the First Mobile Phone Research Institute, said that Apple currently has three problems: one is that the 5G new product launch is lagging behind, the second is the lack of product innovation and the lack of models, and the third is the decline in user loyalty.
Aurora big data shows that iPhone user loyalty in the fourth quarter of 2019 was 56.6%, basically the same as the previous quarter, ending the trend of three consecutive quarters of decline; the proportion of iPhone users who switched to Huawei phones was further increased, accounting for 24%.
An Apple supply chain listed company said that Apple launched the iPhone SE at a low price, but also to increase sales, maintain the entire user base, increase software revenue, and then reduce the impact of Apple hardware sales revenue caused by the epidemic.
The iPhone SE 2, released on April 15, is equipped with the same A13 processor as the iPhone 11 Pro.
It uses a 4.7-inch 1334 x 750 resolution LCD Retina HD display that supports Touch ID and Haptic Touch.
It is equipped with a 12-megapixel f/1.8 aperture wide-angle camera, supports portrait mode + next-generation smart HDR, and the rear camera supports 4K up to 60fps video shooting.
It is pre-installed with the iOS 13 system; supports IP67 dust and water resistance, supports wireless charging, 18W fast charging, Wi-Fi 6 and Gigabit LTE.
The second generation of iPhone SE is available in three colors: black, white, and red. It is available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB models, and starts at 3299 yuan.
Its pre-sale in China started at 8 pm on Friday and it will be officially on sale on Friday, April 24.
It's worth noting that the discounts on Juhuasuan and Pinduoduo are more for publicity as buyers have to either compete with each other to get coupons or have to take part in a lottery system.
