IPhone unpopular? After 2 weeks, only 5 iPhones sold in Chinese online store | Hacker News Reader

IPhone unpopular? After 2 weeks, only 5 iPhones sold in Chinese online store

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7 pointsdailo109 comments

The title is misleading.

To clarify,

> only 5 iPhones sold in Chinese online store

Which really means, The official ChinaUniCom store on Taobao.com has just sold 5 iPhones in 2 weeks.

ChinaUniCom is the only and run-by-government carrier of iPhones in China, all official iPhones has no WIFI chipset(Marvell 88W8686 Wi-Fi). And Taobao.com is the biggest & most popular B2C & C2C online store in China, something like a combination of craigslist+eBay+Amazon.

But, the statistics does NOT include ChinaUniCom's own website that offers iPhone sales online: http://shop.10010.com/iphonesale/getAllIphone.action

But this does not change the fact the ChinaUniCom version iPhone sucks hell. It's expensive and lacks function. Reports say that 80% buyers dropped the official ChinaUniCom iPhone OS for modded ones.

I bought my iPhone in Beijing for 4800RMB, this included delivery to my apartment. It was unlocked, jailbroken and had WIFI. This let me use it with my mobile account on China Mobile since few people use China Unicom. I have many friends with iPhones. Free WIFI is everywhere in China so it'd suck not to have it.

Why would you switch carriers and your phone number to the smaller, less popular carrier and buy a locked phone without WIFI for another couple thousand RMB? Of course Apple/China Unicom sell no phones, DUH! It's almost like this is a face saving move by Apple to say they're in China without having to meet all the demands that China Mobile wanted.

The CU iPhone is unpopular. This is the more expensive, but less functional version compared to everywhere else. Eventually it will gain some ground if the price ever comes down. I bought an iPhone on the grey market and have an official one. I'd have to go back to the US to get any support at all for the later.

Sooner or later, people are going to run into problems and that 600$ iPhone is going to turn into a 1200$ headache if you can't get it serviced.

I am involved in the current #1 free app in the chinese store, and it's getting 2500 downloads a day, and the number is going up every day by 50-100.

Which app is that?

Tips

I think the article itself makes it pretty clear. For those who are curious, The Economist also reported on this recently. It's not that the iPhone isn't popular, it's that the Apple iPhone isn't popular, because the knockoffs are both cheap and come loaded with as much extra functionality as they can be crammed with.

While the shanzhai cellphones are popular (and very cool), I think the article's analysis of this is more accurate than your own. The illegally imported US and Hong Kongese Apple iPhones here have a wifi card and are significantly cheaper than the ones sold in a Unicom store. Why pay $1000 USD for a wifi-less version of the iPhone when you can pay $700 through an unofficial retailer for a version without any lacking functionality?

Yes, I agree. What I was meaning to point out is that the headline is misleading. Someone else stated that better.

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