Apple Weakness Grows on iPhone Discount

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 15, 7:35AM EST

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Apple Weakness Grows on iPhone Discount — © Stockfoo / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Among Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) biggest strengths is that it rarely offers product price discounts. Carriers may offer deals for people who buy iPhones, but price cuts are almost never an option for those who buy directly from the company. Apple backed away from the philosophy by cutting prices on its flagship iPhone 15 in China. China is the world’s largest smartphone market and among the most competitive. (Here are five reasons to avoid Apple products today.)

Several media outlets report the iPhone 15 price cut will be part of a four-day sale. The cut will be about 7% off the normal retail prices during the period. The decision is not trivial. Reuters reports that iPhone sales dropped 30% in China in the first week of the new year, compared to the same week of 2023.

Apple’s China revenue in its most recently reported quarter was $15.1 billion, out of Apple’s total $89.5 billion. That number was down from $15.5 billion year over year.

Statista reports that smartphone penetration in the China market is 72% of the population. That means the number of smartphone users is close to a billion people.

Accurate data about smartphone market share differs among research companies. Among the most respected of those who gather information, Canalys showed that Apple’s market share was 10% in the third quarter of last year. The top manufacturer is the local company Honor. It had a share of 11% based on shipments. Other local companies Oppo and Vivo had 10% each.

Apple’s stock has been hit this year. Microsoft passed it as the most valuable company traded on U.S. markets. Its stock is down 3% in 2024, after a run-up of about 50% last year.

Investors worry that Apple’s revenue growth has slowed for some support from the new Chinese price discount.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.