Chinese consumers no longer buy new Apple products

A student from Shanghai, China, called Xu Yechuyi, wanted to buy a new iPhone last year. But as she didn't have enough money to buy one at the Apple store, opted for an iPhone with three years of use 6S, costing less than a third of what it would pay for a new smartphone in the store. Xu, of 22 years, is part of a group of thousands of consumers who no longer go to the shops to buy a new cell phone, passing the turn to the market of second hand phones in China. They are still spending money on Apple products, but these resources never come to Cupertino, where the American company has your thirst. "I think there's a real demand for this second-hand market of consumers with little money like me," said Xu. The trend of buying second hand equipment is more of a challenge to Apple in the largest market of smartphones in the world – although it is not the only obstacle the company. For some time, the company has been losing ground to Chinese manufacturers of mobile phones more acesíveis, such as Huawei, the Oppo and Alive. Released initially in China in 2009, the iPhones sold in the Asian country have helped Apple to earn profits. But last year, the release of your unit more expensive-marketed in this country by the equivalent of $ $1300 – coincided with the downturn of the economy and the slowdown of the Smartphone market. Bad sales of China took Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Executive, uploading, on Wednesday, 2, a statement to investors in which he cut his quarterly estimate of iPhone sales — was the first time that Apple has issued a warning about your weather forecast recipe before disclosing quarterly results since the launch of the iPhone in 2007. The Chinese market was appointed as the main responsible for the fall. "Although we have anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, didn't anticipate the magnitude of the economic downturn, particularly in China," Cook said, in a message to investors. Several leading Chinese technology companies also reduced their forecasts of profit last year. Among them are the company Alibaba and the search engine Baidu, which mentioned the impact of the trade war in their business. Consumer confidence impacts the Chinese economy since last year, affecting the retail sales of cars. Analysts say that while the economy to continue slowing, the market of used smartphones just tends to expand. The Chinese research group iiMedia provides that there will be 144 million smartphone users in the country in second-hand 2019, an increase of a third over the past year. "The macro environment is not in favour of Apple," said Kiranjeet Kaur, Senior Research Manager of IDC consulting in Singapore. "The purchasing power of the people is waning." In the West of Beijing, an employee of a company equipment repair stated that realized an increase in the amount of users looking to fix old iPhones instead of buying new. "Many people choose to continue using their old iPhones, changing the battery and upgrading the system to iOS 12," said a user in Chinese blogging service Weibo, referring to the newly released operating system by Apple. Support for Chinese brands. This Thursday, 3, popular pages on Weibo referred to the fall of sales of Apple with patriotic comments. "Only Fools buy expensive iPhones. Sane people, buy the best quality, cheap price, such as Huawei, "wrote a user in a comment made out hundreds of times. "Support Chinese brands." Support for local brands gained momentum last year after the United States imposed import tariffs on Chinese products. Internet users responded by asking for a boycott of Apple – the company is seen as a symbol. The Chinese manufacturer Huawei also gained more support after the arrest of the company's financial Vice President in Canada last month. In an Apple store in the shopping district in Beijing, Zhang Lijun stylist was thinking about buying an iPhone X or the competitor Huawei P20, which runs on the Android operating system from Google, owner of the Alphabet. "I think the price is too high," she said, referring to the iPhone. "Huawei was in evidence in the last two years, perhaps because has increasing awareness about supporting local brands."