Online sellers in China are once again discounting iPhones, for the second time this year. This time around, the discounts include Apple’s iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max models.
Several electronics vendors announced discounts on iPhone devices this week, following mass discounts in January just before Apple reported sinking sales in China.
Online gadget retailer Suning.Com Co Ltd. announced it would cut the price of the iPhone XS by as much as 1,000 yuan ($148.95) from its usual retail price. Suing had put a round of iPhone price cuts in place back in January with numerous other retailers, but the price cuts did not include the iPhone XS.
Bargain e-commerce site Pinduoduo Inc., said it will sell the 64GB iPhone XS for 6,999 yuan, a drop of over 1,000 yuan from the official retail price.
Online giant JD.com said it would be offering discounts on numerous Apple products, including the iPhone XS and XS Max. The retailer made a similar round of cuts back in January, but did not include the XS and XS Max models at the time.
Apple officially dropped wholesale iPhone prices to third-party distributors in China on January 10. The iPhone maker did so in hopes that since the vendors could purchase the handsets more cheaply, they would pass the savings on to their customers. At the time, the XR benefited from the biggest cuts.
Apple made the cuts in an effort to battle significantly lower iPhone sales in China during the 2018 holiday quarter, which led to greatly reduced iPhone revenue for the quarter. It has been reported that the iPhone discounts are having the desired effect, as Apple is seeing improved iPhone sales in China.
In addition to price cuts, Apple has partnered with Ant Financial, the finance arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and several state-owned banks to offer interest-free loans to purchase iPhones.