Apple's iPhone 15 already being discounted on Chinese e-commerce sites in run up to Double 11 sales festival

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus were selling at steep discounts to their official retail prices on Alibaba’s Taobao platform
Sales of the iPhone 15 series have been weaker than its predecessor in China, according to market consultancy Counterpoint Research

Apple

Ben Jiangin Beijing

Published: 10:30pm, 23 Oct 2023

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Apple’s new iPhone 15 series is already subject to steep discounts on Chinese e-commerce websites in the run up to this year’s Double 11 online sales extravaganza, with the iconic smartphone up against stiff competition from Huawei Technologies’ Mate 60 Pro 5G handset.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus were selling at around 800 yuan (US$109) and 900 yuan cheaper, respectively, than their official retail prices on Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao platform.

Meanwhile, on PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo, the basic 128-gigabyte iPhone 15 was being sold at 5,198 yuan – 801 yuan less than its retail price – according to checks by the South China Morning Post on Monday.

Apple, which usually exerts tight control over the retail pricing of its products, Pinduoduo and Alibaba did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

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The discounts come in the build up to China’s Double 11 Global Sales Festival – also known as Singles’ Day – which falls on November 11 each year, during which domestic e-commerce giants will compete to offer the “best price guarantees” to woo Chinese consumers amid economic headwinds.

Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall Group will start presales for Singles’ Day on the evening of October 24, with expectations it can attract about 1 billion consumers this year, according to a company statement on Friday. Alibaba owns the Post.

Sales of the iPhone 15 series have been weaker than its predecessor in China, according to market consultancy Counterpoint Research. The first 17 days of sales of the iPhone 15 series in China were down 4.5 per cent compared to the iPhone 14, according to preliminary data compiled by Counterpoint.

“This is a reflection of the broader decline in consumer spending,” noted Counterpoint analyst Mengmeng Zhang in recent research.

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Shanghai customers ‘not very satisfied’ with iPhone 15 series on 1st day of release

Cupertino, California-based Apple is also up against stiff competition from China’s national tech champion Huawei, which surprised the market in September – just ahead of the iPhone 15’s launch – with its new Mate 60 Pro, which sports a powerful home-grown chip in defiance of US trade sanctions.

According to a Bloomberg report last week, Jefferies analysts led by Edison Lee have estimated that sales of the iPhone 15 in China were down by a sharp double-digit percentage from its predecessor the iPhone 14.

During its initial six weeks of sales, Huawei shipped more than 1.6 million units of the Mate 60 series to Chinese consumers, with weekly sales exceeding 400,000 units during the last two weeks, Ivan Lam, a Counterpoint analyst, said in an interview with Reuters last week.

In September, Huawei upped its sales target for the second half of 2023 by 20 per cent to give a full-year total sales volume of 40 million smartphones, buoyed by the popularity of its Mate 60 series, according to a report by Chinese newspaper Securities Daily, citing unidentified sources at the Shenzhen-based company.

Additional reporting by Dylan Butts

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