Stefan Mileschin

Same functions for half the price

Apple’s most scary rival is not the makers of other high-end phones but mid-range phones coming out of China.

Analysts have been telling Reuters that while investors had been willing to overlook stagnating unit sales of the iPhone because average selling prices kept rising. But it now faces fierce competition from mid-priced phones from makers such as Xiaomi.

Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi said that slower overall smartphone sales would make it harder for Apple to hold smartphone market share as people put off buying its more expensive phones. That, in turn, could hurt the growth of Apple’s services revenue.

Without volume growth in promising overseas markets such as India, Brazil and Russia, the worry among analysts and investors is that Apple has at least parts of its strategy wrong with too much emphasis on its premium brand and the high prices that go with it, more than $1,000 for its top models.

Hal Eddins, chief economist for Apple shareholder Capital Investment Counsel, said phones like the OnePlus 6T are comparable to Apple’s high-end phones for almost half the price.

“You can get a lot of phone for a lot less”, he said. “The phone landscape is rapidly changing, and I think manufacturers are missing a trick by going the $1,000 route.”

https://fudzilla.com/news/mobile/476...d-range-phones