SHANGHAI: Apple hit the Chinese market with its latest iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones on Friday, facing a tough competition with rivals led by Samsung in the crucial market.
Apple is only in sixth place in China’s highly fragmented smartphone market, where cheaper phones using the Android operating system are popular. Apple has a 6.9% share, far behind leader Samsung of South Korea, which has 15.4%.
The iPhone 6 with 16 GB of memory is selling for the equivalent of $867 in China, significantly higher than neighbouring Hong Kong where the same model retails for $726. The top-end iPhone 6 Plus with 128 GB sells for $1,277 in the mainland.
It launched the large-screen iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 10 countries and regions on September 19, but could not do so in mainland China because it lacked a key network access licence.
Customer deliveries began Friday in the company’s 12 retail stores in mainland China, and through the country’s three major telecom providers and other sales channels.
E-commerce firm JD took 9.5 million pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus as of Thursday.
