While <a href="http://www.imore.com/2009/12/04/chinese-online-retailer-sells-iphone-weeks/>sales of the iPhone in China have been less than stellar since launch, things are seemingly getting a little better as China Unicom has announced 100,000 iPhones have been sold since it's launch back on October 30th.
If you stop and think about it, China Unicom has about 144 million customers so that 100,000 mark really does not seem like much. Again, we are blaming slow sales on the abundance of unlocked iPhones that actually have WiFi and can be used with Pre-Paid SIM cards.
Rumor has it t
[Thanks to the Reptile for the tip]
Reader comments
China Unicom iPhone Sales Slowly Getting Better
Do you even wonder what the sales rate has been the past week? As recent as the third week of November, totals sales whee estimated at 10k or less. In two weeks, it jumped to 100K.
Are sales snowballin like what happened in Japan where sales were disamal at first, and then sales picked upthat 1million were sold in 3 months?
Here is what happened.
The chairman of China Unicom gets scrutinized for the abysmal iPhone sales so far. Trying to save face / meet Apple's minimal sell through numbers, he mobilized every employee to push the iPhone out of gate, managers and above have to personally buy one out of their own pocket, lower rank employees have to sell at least one to relatives or friends the Amway way... per month, or there will be major salary deduction, not to mention performance evaluation is also on the line.
Seriously, nobody in his right mind will buy the official Wifiless iPhone with his own money... not voluntarily at least.
Incidentally, the grey market for HK or US version iPhone is hot like never before thanks to Unicom's carpet ad bombing.
WTF @ no wifi on it?that's the gag
Off course they will buy. Yo basically can get the china version iphone for free depending on the subscription. If you bought a grey market phone, you pay for the phone and then pay for the service.
Also, the phone is not that far from the price in HK. In HK you have zero, zilch, nada, no tax. It sells for US$800. To buy it, you have to have a HK address and have to get the phone shipped to you by a friend or you visit HK. The tax in China is 17%.
Anyway, I bet at the earnings report, we will find out that China sold at least 300K phones.
I forgot, there is a consumption tax component too. The tax is 5 percent.
The subsidies that Unicom provides is sizieable. Can you get a free iphone from AT&T.
Of course the drawback is that you have to deposit the moeny up front (almost like prepaid) but If you can afford to buy a grey market phone, you can afford to cough up the amount. Anyway, you still have to prepay for the subscription it just is the way it is in Chine.
In southeast asia, people who earn about 900 dollars a month, will buy a phone that costs 300 dollars. mind you that 900 is subject ot income and other taxes. They probably net 650 dollars.
Wow, you just HAD to take this opportunity to ridicule one of China's icons didn't you. The news had nothing to do with Bruce Lee but you couldn't help yourself. You probably thought to yourself 'Hey, why not? It's just innocent fun!' Well, let me tell you what time it is: Just because it wasn't subject to a Black person doesn't mean it wasn't racist. Yes, that's right - racism is racism and its not restricted to the N word. Do not think for a minute that its OK to be racist to Asians or that 'its just a bit of innocent fun'. Its not. Sure, its not as taboo in today's society to be racist to Asians as it is to Black people, but its racism all the same. Understand that.
Now, you're probably not racist. But you're sure as hell ignorant. I will not be frequenting this blog after today.