On January 17th, Apple's official flagship store online platform saw a price reduction.
Starting from midnight, the official flagship store of Tmall's Apple Store has launched a "Spring Festival limited time discount" promotion, with official discounts for all Apple products such as phones, computers, tablets, and headphones. The full range of iPhone 15 is discounted by 1000 yuan, starting at 4999 yuan, which is lower than the 500 yuan price reduction announced on Apple's official website on Monday.
Multiple institutions have downgraded their ratings and products have been continuously reduced in price, making Apple unable to sell?
Offline and online consecutive price reductions
It is reported that from January 17th to 31st, Tmall will hold a New Year's goods festival event. The official flagship store of the Apple Store has released a poster announcing that during the Chinese New Year holiday, all products including phones, computers, tablets, headphones, etc. will be officially reduced. Among them, the full range of iPhone 15 offers a discount of 1000 yuan, starting at 4999 yuan upon purchase; The maximum price reduction for tablets can reach 1600 yuan, with a MacBook Air coupon starting at 9499 yuan. Compared to the Spring Festival price reduction announced on Apple's official website on January 15th, the discount on this e-commerce platform is significantly greater.
At the beginning of 2024, Apple experienced a rare price reduction. In the morning of January 15, Apple (Chinese Mainland) released price reduction information on its official website. From January 18 to 21, some Apple products were promoted in the Spring Festival, and the full range of iPhone 15 activities were participated. The maximum price reduction of mobile phone products was 500 yuan, and the maximum price reduction of Apple laptop products was 800 yuan.
The consecutive price reductions on official websites, offline platforms, and e-commerce platforms have intensified market concerns about Apple's sales situation and future demand in China. According to Apple's 2023 fiscal year financial report (as of September 30, 2023), in the third quarter, Apple's revenue in Greater China was $15.084 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%; The overall revenue was $89.498 billion, a decrease of 0.72%, and all hardware businesses except for the iPhone business experienced a year-on-year decline.
The release of the iPhone 15 series at the end of September 2023 did not cause the same frenzy as Apple's previous new product releases. On authorized dealer platforms such as JD.com and Pinduoduo, the iPhone 15 series products saw various price discounts shortly after their release.
Since 2024, multiple institutions have downgraded their ratings of Apple. On January 10th, Redburn analyst James Cordwell adjusted Apple's stock rating from "buy" to "neutral", but maintained a target price of $200.
At the beginning of the month, Piper Sandler also lowered Apple's target stock price by $15 to $205, and downgraded its rating from "overweight" to "neutral".
Barclays Bank is even more aggressive, downgrading Apple's stock rating from "neutral" to "underweight" and lowering its target price to $160. This means that Barclays Bank believes that Apple's stock price will fall by 15% in 2024.
The market is slowly recovering
During Apple's 2023 fiscal year earnings conference call, CEO Tim Cook stated that Apple's revenue in Greater China for the quarter was -2%, mainly due to significant foreign exchange impact. In fact, in September 2023, iPhone revenue set a quarterly record in Chinese Mainland, and tablets and laptops were the reason for the lower revenue.
Currently, the global smartphone market is slowly recovering, while the recovery in the Chinese market is more pronounced. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, from January to November 2023, the cumulative shipment of smartphones in China reached 250 million units, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%; A total of 337 new models of smartphones have been launched, a year-on-year increase of 6%. According to Counterpoint Research data, sales in the high-end smartphone (wholesale price ≥ $600) market are expected to increase by 6% year-on-year in 2023, becoming an important driving force in the mobile phone market.
Counterpoint Research points out that Apple remains the undisputed leader in the high-end smartphone market, but its market share has declined compared to 2022. In the third quarter of 2023, Apple's smartphone sales decreased by 10% year-on-year, and its market share decreased from 15.3% in the same period of 2022 to 14.2%. Huawei and Xiaomi's market share increased by 3.8 percentage points and 1 percentage point respectively during the same period.
New mobile technologies are blooming in multiple locations
On January 8th, Apple officially announced that its hybrid virtual headset device, Apple Vision Pro, will be released in the United States on February 2nd and will be available for pre-sale starting from January 19th. Apple has high hopes for this headset device, hoping to redefine the way people connect, create, and explore.
For domestic manufacturers, new smartphones are flourishing in technologies such as foldable screens, satellite communication, and early artificial intelligence.
According to IDC data, in the third quarter of 2023, the shipment volume of China's foldable screen mobile phone market reached 1.96 million units, a year-on-year increase of 90.4%. According to research by Huajin Securities, up to 64% of high-end smartphone users in China are willing to try foldable smartphones, making them a new growth pole. According to Counterpoint Research, the shipment volume of foldable screen smartphones is expected to increase to 35.7 million units in 2024.
In the field of satellite technology, as an important component of commercial aerospace, the "satellite fever" in the mobile phone industry is emerging. At present, some models of Huawei and Honor in China are equipped with satellite communication function. In 2024, OPPO, Meizu, and Xiaomi also have related layouts.
In addition, manufacturers are actively exploring the commercial application of artificial intelligence. Guohai Securities believes that AIPC and AIphone are still in the early stages of commercialization, but terminal device manufacturers may end the era of a single business model centered on large model manufacturers when providing services in the cloud through API interfaces or ChatGPT like applications.
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