
Where once there were lines around the block for the newest iPhone, now Apple faces intense competition from Samsung plus a host of local players such as Xiaomi making cheaper smartphones. Net sales in China for the fiscal year ended September 2013 rose 13 percent to $25.4 billion, accounting for about 15 percent of Apple’s $170.9 billion in total net sales.īut its performance has been mixed. This was the pot at the end of the rainbow and now that we’re there, it’s going to be an old-fashioned slog it out over customers,” said Ben Thompson, a Taipei-based writer on the technology industry at .Ĭhina is Apple’s second-largest market after the United States. “The easiest way to grow iPhone sales was always distribution.
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REUTERS/Wong CampionĪ deal with the world’s largest mobile carrier, expected as early as this week, nets Apple 759 million potential new customers that could generate $3 billion in 2014 revenue, or nearly one-quarter of Apple’s projected revenue growth in its current fiscal year.īut after the initial haul, Apple will find itself in a familiar, expensive battle with its main smartphone rival, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, to win over customers, one wallet at a time.Īnd China Mobile will likely have to wait at least a year for its payout as it spends billions of dollars to build a 4G network so customers can make full use of their iPhones. A worker cleans glass in front of an iPhone 5C advertisement at an apple store in Kunming, Yunnan province, in this Octofile picture.
