Apple Inc yesterday announced a rare retail promotion in China, offering four days of discounts on its top-tier iPhones and related accessories in advance of the launch of its next-generation devices.
The company, usually reluctant to alter pricing, is to take up to 600 yuan (US$88.83) off the price of its top-line iPhone 13 Pro series from Friday to Monday next week, according to a notice on its Web site.
To be eligible, buyers must use one of a select number of payment platforms, such as Ant Group Co’s (螞蟻集團) Alipay (支付寶). Certain AirPods and Apple Watch models are also part of the promotion.
Photo: Reuters
The discounts come as China’s economy tries to bounce back from major COVID-19 lockdowns in business hubs Shanghai and Beijing, which have hurt sales of leading domestic smartphone brands from Xiaomi Corp (小米) to Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀) and Vivo Communication Technology Co (維沃).
Apple bucked the trend by registering healthy growth in China shipments last month, national data showed, although the discounts suggest even it has surplus inventory heading into the latter half of the year.
Weakening consumer demand, inflation and supply chain issues triggered a 9 percent fall in global smartphone shipments in the second quarter, research firm Canalys said this month. Chinese companies took the brunt of that hit, registering double-digit percentage declines.
Apple has traditionally kept iPhone prices unchanged between generations, although this year’s economic upheaval has already pushed it to one unusual move: raising prices in Japan in response to the drastically weakened yen.
The company offers several payment options in China, including installment plans and lower pricing for students, but it has refrained from discounting its flagship products in the country for years.
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
TECHNOLOGICAL RIVALRY: The artificial intelligence chip competition among multiple players would likely intensify over the next two years, a Quanta official said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which makes servers and laptops on a contract basis, yesterday said its shipments of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s GB300 chips have increased steadily since last month, should surpass those of the GB200 models this quarter. The production of GB300 servers has gone much more smoothly than that of the GB200, with shipments projected to increase sharply next month, Quanta executive vice president Mike Yang (楊麒令) said on the sidelines of a technology forum in Taipei. While orders for GB200 servers gradually decrease, the production transition between the two server models has been
US sports leagues rushed to get in on the multi-billion US dollar bonanza of legalized betting, but the arrest of an National Basketball Association (NBA) coach and player in two sprawling US federal investigations show the potential cost of partnering with the gambling industry. Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, a former Detroit Pistons star and an NBA Hall of Famer, was arrested for his alleged role in rigged illegal poker games that prosecutors say were tied to Mafia crime families. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was charged with manipulating his play for the benefit of bettors and former NBA player and
RSS