Apple accelerated shop in China

Tencent technology Xiuxian Qian July 26 reported

After a period of preparation, Apple's retail store opened significantly faster.

Today, Apple's 11th retail store in mainland China will be officially opened in Chongqing North Street, which will be the largest Apple outlet in Southwest China. Apple's official website in China shows that its 12th retail store will be located in Wuxi and will open at 10am on August 2.

On the one hand, the past expansion of Apple's retail stores was a bit slow. Apple CEO Cook said in an interview in 2013 that Apple's retail store in China quickly expanded to 25. Judging from the current progress, Apple's retail store opened less than expected. This seems to be related to the absence of a two-year run of Apple retail executives.

On the other hand, operators' efforts to reduce their subsidies to high-end handsets such as Apple and Samsung to increase their profit margins forced Apple to reduce its dependence on Chinese operators by expanding its own channels.

In the carrier channel, Apple has tasted a lot of sweetness. Data shows that while maintaining the high price of Apple, 70% of the products shipped through the global carriers, operators will give users a high subsidy to stimulate the user to buy.

Especially in the Chinese market, from 2009 onwards, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile three operators have vied to introduce the iPhone as the flagship brand to drive 3G subscriber growth. Just in the third quarter of 2014, Apple's revenue in the Greater China region was 59.35 billion US dollars, an increase of 28%, iPhone sales increased 48%.

The days of enjoying high subsidies may not be long in the next quarter. In July of this year, the State Council SASAC required that the three operators reduce their marketing expenses by 20% over the next three years. It is estimated that including mobile phone purchase subsidies and product advertising costs, including marketing costs of 40 billion yuan, of which one-third of mobile phone subsidies. According to ABI research projections, 84% of all Samsung Electronics, 80% of HTC, Apple's 74% will accept operator subsidies. Assuming the operators to reduce handset subsidies, bear the brunt of the affected mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple.

In addition to the carrier channel shipments may reduce the impact of Apple's next quarter's data, Apple's own retail store retail is not obvious, leaving Apple more anxiety.

Although the excellent service of Apple retail stores has won the user's favor, Apple's retail sales per square inch reached 4551 US dollars / square foot, the figure even beyond the Tiffany, but the overall sales of Apple products, only 11% IPhone is sold through the Apple store, which is far from self-owned sales of 75% of the Burberry brand.

Apple's former retail chief John - Breuett left in October 2012, since then, the retail business has been unable to satisfy Apple executives. During the absence of retail executives, the growth of Apple's retail business slowed. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the revenue of each retail store dropped from US $ 131 billion in the second quarter to US $ 124 billion.

Fortunately, in May of this year, Angela Allendez, former CEO of Burberry, joined Apple Inc. as senior vice president of retail and online stores and reported directly to Apple CEO Cook.

It seems that the acceleration of retail outlets in China can be seen as part of Angela's role. Whether it can offset the negative impact of reduced operator subsidies by driving retail sales is expected to be seen in the next quarterly earnings results.