In a rare push, Apple has cut iPhone 14 Pro prices in China in a special promotion combined with carriers. According to Bloomberg, these “unusually steep price cuts” suggests a “dwindling demand for even its highest-end devices.”
As previously reported, Apple has had poor sales of the regular iPhone 14 models since they launched last year. For the iPhone 14 Pro versions, on the other hand, customers were willing to buy but couldn’t find any models available due to supply constraints.
Now, Chinese carriers are offering up to $118 in a discount for those buying iPhone 14 Pro models, as they are also not selling as expected.
JD.com Inc. and state carrier China Mobile Ltd. are among the retailers taking 800 yuan ($118) off the iPhone 14 Pro range over 11 days. Retailers in the southern electronics hub of Shenzhen have also begun cutting prices for the same handsets by 700 yuan, the official China Securities Journal reported after visiting outlets around the city. Apple’s own local website, meanwhile, continued to offer devices at regular prices.
This price cut also comes after a bad quarter for Apple. Usually, this is when the company breaks records, but due to the COVID-19 lockdown in iPhone’s largest plant in China, the company couldn’t sell all iPhones it could.
According to Bloomberg, the discounts started appearing around the end of the Lunar New Year season, and it’s unclear how long the cuts may persist. As Apple is not sure how it will perform in the next quarter, as it said it would “mirror” the December period, we could see a revenue decline of about 5%.
Jefferies analysts have estimated that sales for the iPhone 14 models over their first 38 days on the Chinese market were down 28% compared with the iPhone 13 family, even though the new models offer more reasons to customers upgrade than the previous generation.
