Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 161 posts

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#61

Post by tyfon »

standardUser wrote: post #29
baroffoos wrote: post #7

I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.

The price is often reduced by your carrier or obscured by no interest payments included in your cell bill. And those $300 phones don't have a mind-blowing camera, but the latest gen flagships phones finally do. That, plus the fact that phones become obsolete much more slowly now, makes those $1k phones a worthwhile investment to me.

Maybe not $300 but I can get a sony xperia xz2 compact for 3000 NOK ($345ish). Sony makes the cameras in many other phones including iphone. I have the larger version, but my wife has this and it takes excellent photos.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#63

Post by strict9 »

disishhsha wrote: post #39
baroffoos wrote: post #7

I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.

I use my phone a lot, and gladly spend a few $ a day for a marginal improvement in my quality of life. Another question - why do people spend $30k on a car when a $10k car is nearly as good? Seems like a much bigger waste of money than the phone.

I use public transit unless leaving the city, almost never use uber/lyft, and yet have a new iPhone.

Why? I hate driving and would rather be reading or goofing off on twitter than being angry behind the wheel as I get somewhere.

Not for everyone but I'll never go back to driving.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#64

Post by umeshunni »

inscionent wrote: post #47
sonnyblarney wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market for $300 T-shirts is very small. Niche, not really consumer.

Yeah NO ONE has ever made money selling luxury consumer goods, ever. /s

Not enough to warrant a near-trillion dollar market cap.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#65

Post by spinach »

plg wrote: post #35

and that's OK Apple is not aiming for mass market. In the same way that Chanel or Coach is not aiming for mass market.

Apple has been aiming for the mass market though, even if at the slightly pricier end of it. How exactly have they not been? Though it does seem from here on out, they might try to shrink their market and focus more on luxury products.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#66

Post by nicoburns »

hendersoon wrote: post #33
nicoburns wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are many people really locked into the apple ecosystem. Most apps that people here in the UK use are cross-platform too...

The key differentiator is that in China your smartphone can in many ways be abstracted down to the platform that runs WeChat. So Apple's key lock-ins like iMessage and FaceTime don't matter and it has to compete on price. Apple greatly increased prices in the US/EU also and many of these regions are facing a recession too, but according to Tim Cook's letter those consumers didn't abandon the iPhone. What's unique to…

Hmm... I'm not convinced by that. At least in the UK, I don't know many people who use FaceTime (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the most popular video chat software). People do use iMessage, but that falls back to SMS if you don't have an iphone, and SMS messages are universally free here these days.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#68

Post by ctvo »

baroffoos wrote: post #42
inscionent wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand why anyone is paying $300+ for a t-shirt when you can get really amazing t-shirts for $10.

Thats an even better example of mindless consumerism. At least an expensive phone actually has slightly better features. A tshirt is a tshirt, if it feels good and looks good thats the only meaningful statistics. The expensive ones don't last any longer than the cheap ones in my experience and its purely to show off that you have an expensive brand name shirt.

There's more to an item, especially one like a piece of clothing which involves design, than its utility value.

For a t-shirt, these things jump immediately to mind that may increase its cost:

- A limited batch

- A particular cut

- A particular print

- Supporting a clothing brand / designer you have a connection with

Why judge someone so harshly because they value some other aspect of the item differently than you? There's something incredibly ugly about being confident in your ignorance and casting judgement on other people.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#69

Post by threeseed »

tyfon wrote: post #61
standardUser wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price is often reduced by your carrier or obscured by no interest payments included in your cell bill. And those $300 phones don't have a mind-blowing camera, but the latest gen flagships phones finally do. That, plus the fact that phones become obsolete much more slowly now, makes those $1k phones a worthwhile investment to me.

Maybe not $300 but I can get a sony xperia xz2 compact for 3000 NOK ($345ish). Sony makes the cameras in many other phones including iphone. I have the larger version, but my wife has this and it takes excellent photos.

Sony makes the camera sensor. The lens comes from another supplier.

And as the Pixel 3 has shown the software makes far more of a difference to the quality of the photo then the hardware.

Post reply on HN