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Did Apple Lose Momentum in China? iPhone 7 Hits Chinese Market, Netizens Not Too Crazy About It

iPhone 7 has been launched in China on Friday, but this time, people are not going crazy over its release. Many Chinese netizens say they would rather buy “made-in-China” smartphones.

Manya Koetse

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iPhone 7 has been launched in China on Friday, but this time, people are not going crazy over its release. Many Chinese netizens say they would rather buy “made-in-China” smartphones. According to Chinese entrepreneur Jia Yueting, Apple has become ‘outdated’ in China.

The crazy long queues in front of the Sanlitun Apple flagship store in Beijing upon every launch of a new iPhone have almost become ‘normal’. In 2012, Apple even canceled the launch of the iPhone 4S after scalpers broke out into a fight.

But this year has been quite different. On September 16, the iPhone 7 went on sale in China and 27 other countries. According to The Telegraph, some people already started queuing up in front of various international Apple Stores days ago. In Beijing, however, Apple fans seemed less enthusiastic.

Chinese media described the iPhone 7 China launch as “not too crazy” (“不太疯”), with “calm” scenes in front of the Apple store. The earliest queuers did not arrive before 5 in the morning.

On Weibo, some netizens pointed out that queuing up would be useless anyway because most buyers already pre-ordered their iPhone 7. But the tempered reception of the iPhone 7 relates to more than the pre-ordering process, as experts say Apple is ‘outdated’ and losing momentum.

Although it is disputable whether or not online reactions affect the actual purchasing behaviour of Chinese consumers, it does affect its brand perception – which undoubtedly will affect the brand’s growth in China in the long run.

Looking at the reactions from Chinese netizens, Apple’s alleged declining popularity has multiple causes that relate to its price, strong domestic competition, lack of innovation, and nationalistic sentiments.

Overall, social media responses to the release of iPhone 7 in China were subdued and not very enthusiastic.

 

Not Willing to Pay the Price

“It’s better to buy 7 apples instead, better for your health, too.”

On the day of the iPhone 7 release in China, quite some netizens posted pictures holding the iPhone 7 – some with a purchased model, but mostly were pictures of the models in the store.

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According to one Weibo user from Guangdong, the lines at the local Apple stores were rather long, but many people seemed to line up only to see the iPhone 7 and “play with it” rather than actually purchasing it. For many, the iPhone is simply too expensive.

733eebb9gw1f7vebonpkxj20qo0zkaf0People queuing up at the Apple Store in Guangdong.

Official Apple prices of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in China respectively are RMB 5388 (±807 US$) and RMB 6388 (±957 US$). But several Chinese media reported on Friday that scalpers often make good money from reselling iPhones, some priced up to RMB 1000 (150 US$) more than the retail price.

A 20-year-old netizen said: “I really don’t understand what people want to prove by buying an iPhone 7. Do they want to flaunt their money?”

There are more netizens resisting buying the smartphone simply because it is Apple. “Chinese people usually like to buy things if they’re expensive,” one Weibo user remarks: “And Apple knows this weak spot.”

“People have money, people are stupid,” another Weibo user explains.

Under the hashtag “Why I Am Not Buying An iPhone 7” (#我为什么不买iphone7#), Chinese netizens discussed their aversion to buying the new smartphone.

For many netizens, money is the main issue. “Why I don’t buy an iPhone? Well, for the same reason why I don’t buy a villa. Or an airplane. I don’t have the money.”

Other Weibo users also said: “I’m poor.”

“The price is unreasonable,” one person remarked: “It’s better to buy 7 apples instead, better for your health, too!”

“Why I don’t buy an iPhone? Because I like Vivo more!”, another netizen says, pointing out the strong competition iPhone has from Chinese smartphones.

 

Strong Domestic Brands & Chinese Nationalism

“I’d rather buy the made-in-China Huawei. I can’t forgive America and Japan for how they’ve hurt China with the South China Sea trial.”

Many Chinese netizens say they now prefer Chinese brands over Apple. Made-in-China smartphone brands Huawei (华为), Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi (小米) are all tough competition for Apple, especially because of their quality/price ratio.

Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4 is priced at RMB 899 (±$135), almost six times cheaper than the iPhone 7.

xiaomi-redmi-note-4-phone-9

But there are also other reasons that contribute to people choosing Chinese brands over foreign ones. One social media comment said: “I’d rather buy the made-in-China Huawei. I can’t forgive America and Japan for how they’ve hurt China with the South China Sea trial.”

The South China Sea verdict came out on July 12, stating that China had no legal rights over reefs and islands that are also claimed by others. The case was brought to the international tribunal in the Hague by the Philippiness, sparking anger in China. While Japan and the USA are stepping up their activity in the contested South China Sea, many netizens feel attacked and see the refusal to buy Apple product as a political choice.

Many other netizens also expressed that they would rather “support China” by buying made-in-China smartphones.

 

Lack of Innovation

“Apple’s innovation has become extremely low.”

Chinese entrepreneur and CEO of LeEco (formerly: LeTV) Jia Yueting spoke to CNBC earlier this year, and said he thought Apple is ‘outdated’. He also said that one of the main reasons for Apple’s declining popularity in China is that its “innovation has become extremely slow.” He said: “For example, a month ago Apple launched the iPhone SE. From an insiders’ perspective, this is a product with a very low level of technology.”

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Other online analysts also predict that “Apple’s bubble is about to break.” Consumers have become more tech-savvy and have high expectations of the products and gadgets they buy: “Apple is still good compared to earlier Android phones in terms of ability. But iOs is not that good anymore. The use of Huawei is much more efficient now,” one netizen writes.

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For Apple, the subdued reactions on Chinese social media do not seem to affect its international sales. Initial quantities of the iPhone 7 Plus have already sold out globally, the company said Wednesday. This means that many customers who visited Apple Stores on Friday were not even able to purchase the sold-out phones. They can, however, still continue to place orders, Apple stated. On Weibo, however, many netizens seem to have lost their interest in getting their hands on the latest iPhone.

– By Manya Koetse

©2016 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

Manya Koetse is the founder and editor-in-chief of whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer, public speaker, and researcher (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends, digital developments, and new media in an ever-changing China, with a focus on Chinese society, pop culture, and gender issues. She shares her love for hotpot on hotpotambassador.com. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.

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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers

Bad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website

Who’s the bad Apple? There’s much ado about Apple on Chinese social media this week, but things turn out differently than expected.

Manya Koetse

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There is a lot of Apple anger on Chinese social media this week. Two separate trending topics have ignited discussions. One revolves around Chinese actor Liu Jin, who smashed his iPhone 13 Pro Max in front of the Apple flagship store, while another one centers on an image of an Apple employee deemed inappropriate by Chinese netizens. But both viral trends have unfolded with surprisingly ‘juicy’ twists.

The Chinese actor Liu Jin (刘金) has become a big topic of discussion on Chinese social media this week for a remarkable statement he made in a 2-minute video that has gone viral.

The ‘statement video’ shows the actor angrily throwing his iPhone 13 Pro Max on the ground until it breaks, right in front of the Wangfujing Apple flagship store in Beijing, pledging he will never buy another Apple product again and accusing the company of being arrogant and overbearing after running into some repair issues.

Liu Jin is an actor who played in various productions, but he made his major breakthrough in 2015 when he played in the Chinese CCTV series Don’t Let me See (别让我看见) and in the successful comedy movie Goodbye Mr Loser (夏洛特烦恼).

In the video, recorded on September 17, Liu explains he just visited the Apple store to get his iPhone back after bringing it in for repair. Liu claimed that he bought his iPhone 13 Pro Max in August of 2022 through the official store and that, after a year, it had a hardware problem that needed to be fixed.

From the video by Liu.

According to Liu, the Apple store has now returned the iPhone to him without repairing it, saying that the phone was “modified without authoritization” by a third party, and that Liu should pay a 6,960 yuan ($950) fee to get it fixed.

Refusing to pay such an amount of money, and denying he got the phone through a third party, Liu then smashes the iPhone on the ground until it is broken, promising never to buy Apple again.

A hashtag related to the video was viewed a staggering 270 million times on Weibo, where it became a top trending topic (#演员刘金苹果店前怒摔iphone#).

 
Apple vs Huawei Rivalry
 

The actor’s recent actions have garnered considerable attention, primarily because they coincide with the escalating rivalry between Huawei and Apple. This rivalry has become a prominent topic of discussion in China recently, due to various things coming together at the same time.

Notably, Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 shortly after Huawei introduced its latest flagship, the Mate 60 Pro 5G. Noteworthy enough (and unlikely coincidentally),it was launched on the same date as the return of Huawei executive daughter Meng Wanzhou from Canada in 2021 (read here).

The official launch ceremony for Huawei’s new products is coming up on September 25, and people are hoping to find out more about the powerful Kirin 90000s chip that is being used by Huawei despite facing heavy US sanctions regarding Chinese access to crucial chip technology.

Simultaneously, reports emerged about alleged Chinese restrictions on iPhones within government and state agencies, resulting in a significant decline in Apple’s stock value. The Foreign Ministry later stated that that China has actually not issued any law, regulation, or policy document to ban the use of Apple phones.

All of these developments have reignited the ongoing tech giant competition in China, that is now about much more than smartphones alone and has come to symbolize geopolitical rivalry, encompassing themes of nationalism, anti-Western sentiments, and a growing sense of pride in products made in China.

 
Much Ado about Apple Employee Photo
 

As Liu’s phone-smashing video went viral, so did another controversy concerning an Apple customer service employee’s photo depicted on the official website of Apple.

A Chinese netizen pointed out that a photo of an Apple Watch Specialist representative on the Apple site may have been purposely “insulting China” (辱华) due to the appearance of the person in the photo.

Initially, many people thought the image was specifically used on the Chinese-language Apple site, and that it concerned a Chinese individual with a hairstyle that resembles a queue: a single long braid of hair that was traditionally worn by male subjects of China during the Qing.

Some people also thought the individual had a pockmark near the mouth and that their looks reinforces stereotypes surrounding Chinese appearances regarding eyes and forehead. The image therefore sparked wide-spread resistance among netizens who thought Apple deliberately and inappropriately used such an image to show Chinese individuals as being backward and unattractive.

online poll with nearly 198,000 likes on Weibo, asking if this photo is appropriate or not (the majority voted that the photo was not appropriate).

On the same day as Liu’s video first came out, September 17, the topic of the “braid-wearing customer service representative” went trending, and the hashtag of “how do you feel about the Apple China website image of the braided customer service representative” (#如何看苹果中国官网辫子客服形象#) has since received over 200 million views on Weibo.

Political commentator Hu Xijin (胡锡进) also responded to the issue, explaining how the Chinese people are particularly sensitive to issues related to “perceived insults to China by Westerners,” due to historical and cultural factors which are further amplified by current tensions in US-China and broader China-Western relations.

Hu therefore argues that “American and Western companies should be more careful and cautious when promoting their products and try to avoid using images and texts that could be misinterpreted by Chinese people.”1

 
Who’s the Bad Apple?
 

But to what extent is criticism of Apple reasonable in both incidents?

In the case of the “braid-wearing customer service representative”, it soon triggered a response from Apple’s customer service (#苹果客服回应辫子客服形象#, hashtag with 180 million views) and led to more information.

It has since become evident that many assumptions about the image were unfounded. Contrary to the initial belief that the photo was exclusive to the Chinese page, it was also featured on Apple’s official websites in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and other countries.

Furthermore, it was revealed that the Apple employee in question is not of Chinese descent at all; she is a Native American female employee (also see Wen Hao’s post on this). Additionally, the perceived pockmark near her mouth was, in fact, a piercing.

In response to this, some people mocked Hu Xijin for how he responded to the controversy.

Photoshop meme mocking Hu Xijin.

But Liu’s video also turns out to be a bit different than the version of the story he presented.

The actor seemed to voice a popular public sentiment by taking a stand against Apple’s dominant position, that rivals that of China’s tech darling Huawei, by smashing an Apple smartphone in public.

But where is the proof that Liu actually bought his iPhone at an Apple store in 2022? Where is the receipt showing that his phone was indeed not coming from a third party that might have modified it?

To the dismay of many netizens, the actor refused to show the official store receipt of his Apple phone, and many people started to doubt if the actor might have just put on a show to gain attention at a critical moment in the market competition between Apple and Huawei.

Moreover, the actor’s story seemed even less credible when he tried to further explain it in a recent social media post.

Why?

As many netizens noted: the post he sent was actually sent from an iPhone.

By Manya Koetse

1 “(..)一些国人在西方人“辱华”的问题上很敏感,有其真实的历史和文化原因。目前中美关系很紧张,中西关系也不如过去,美国和西方公司在做产品宣传时,多一些细心、谨慎,尽量不要选用有可能引发中国人误解的图文,这是他们开展跨文化交流时一份应有的素养和水平。”

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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers

Eyebrow Pencil Gate: “Lipstick King” Li Jiaqi Loses 630,000 Fans In One Night

China’s famous beauty livestreamer Li Jiaqi is in hot water after his annoyed response about an $11 eyebrow pencil.

Manya Koetse

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Li Jiaqi is facing controversy for remarks he made during his recent e-commerce livestream. When viewers made comments about an eyebrow pencil being expensive, he lashed out and asked them if they worked hard enough. Due to his cold attitude and arrogant comments, the ‘lipstick king’ seems to have lost his crown.

Li Jiaqi is losing fans. That is according to a Weibo hashtag that went trending today (#李佳琦掉粉#), which highlights a significant drop of 630,000 Weibo followers in just 24 hours.

For those unfamiliar with Li Jiaqi (1992, English name Austin Li), he is one of China’s most renowned make-up influencers, also known as the “Lipstick King.” Previously a cosmetics salesman, Li has since risen to become one of China’s most celebrated livestreamers, setting numerous records along the way.

In 2018, he broke the Guinness World Record for “the most lipstick applications in 30 seconds.” He once sold 15000 lipsticks in 5 minutes, and also managed to apply 380 different lipsticks in another seven-hour live stream session. Li made international headlines in 2021 when he sold $1.9 billion in goods during a 12-hour-long promotion livestream for Alibaba’s shopping festival.

But now Li is in hot water because of an e-commerce livestream he did on Sunday, September 10th. When some viewers complained that the eyebrow pencil by Huaxi Zi (花西子), Florasis, seems to be getting more expensive (79 RMB, $10.9), Li vehemently defended the cosmetic brand. Seemingly annoyed with his viewers, he insisted that the product was reasonably priced, highlighting the brand’s use of high-quality ingredients and claiming it had not increased its prices for years.

In addition to this, Li began to lecture his audience, questioning whether they had made significant efforts to have received salary raises over the years (Literally: “Sometimes it’s because of yourself, if you haven’t seen a raise in so many years, did you work hard enough?” [“有的时候自己原因好吧。怎么多年了工资张没涨有没有认真工作”]). Even his assistant, next to him, seemed visibly uncomfortable when Li lashed out. We added some subtitled to this short fragment here.

Later on, Li appeared to recognize his mistake and suggested that people weren’t obligated to purchase the Florasis brand; instead, they could opt for a more affordable eyebrow pencil that he would be promoting later on.

This incident sparked major backlash from fans who voices their anger and disappointment, accusing Li of losing sight of his humble origins and owing everything to his viewers. Starting out by selling Maybelline makeup behind a shop counter, Li rose to prominence alongside the live e-commerce trend, amassing immense wealth thanks to his dedicated fans and viewers.

Why would he now alienate his viewers in such a way? Furthermore, many argued that the Florasis eyebrow pencil is undeniably expensive, with some even making comparisons to the cost of gold when measured by weight.

In the early morning of September 11, Li apologized on his Weibo account. He wrote that he felt disappointed in himself for responding the way he did. “As a livestream host I should send out positive energy, and learn to control my emotions,” he wrote.

Li Jiaqi apology on Weibo.

Later on, he issued an on-camera apology during a livestream. With tears in his eyes, he expressed heartfelt remorse for letting down so many people and acknowledged his mistakes. A related hashtag on Weibo soon got over 430 million clicks (#李佳琦哭着道歉#).

But many people do not appreciate his apologies. The top comment under his written apology post says: “You are making money out of ordinary people and now you turned around saying ordinary people are too poor,” while the most popular comment under the livestream apology said: “If I would earn 5 million yuan a day ($685k), my tears would be much more sincere than yours.”

This meme shows that many viewers do not feel moved by Li’s apologetic tears.

There are more angles to this story. Besides alienating his audience, others also feel he is not being completely transparant. As Li Jiaqi hinted during the livestream, he seems to have a very close relationship with the Florasis brand. Some reports even suggest that the commission rate for his endorsement of the Florasis brand, which was established in Hangzhou six years ago, may have been as high as 80%.

It is not the first time Li gets caught up in controversy. Last year, Li disappeared from China’s e-commerce channels for three months after one of his livestreams made references to shooting tanks. The ‘cake tank incident’ (坦克蛋糕事件) occurred on the night before June 4, the 33rd anniversary of the violent crackdown of the Tiananmen student demonstrations.

However, a notable distinction between that controversy and the current one lies in how his fans reacted. Despite the prior controversy, the majority of his supporters remained loyal to the beauty influencer, extending a warm welcome when he returned in September of 2022.

This time, many followers feel personally attacked by him. While Li Jiaqi defended the brow pencil price by suggesting that “domestic brands are struggling,” some commenters ask: “If domestic brands are struggling, don’t you think the people are also struggling?” (“国货难,国民难道就不难了吗?”)

Earlier this year, a casual remark made by Chinese actress Zhang Yuqi during a livestream also ignited discussions surrounding the stark disparity between the perspectives of celebrities and the financial realities experienced by ordinary individuals. During that promotional livestream, Zhang suggested that 699 yuan ($100) for a cashmere blanket was so cheap, saying: “I don’t even think I can buy a pair of socks with that amount.”

In response to this incident, some commenters mentioned that they could cover their food expenses for an entire month with that money. Many netizens remarked that some Chinese celebrities seem to not only live in a world where everything costs more, but they also seem to reside in a place where “poverty” is defined differently.

By Monday night, Li Jiaqi still had 29,8 million followers on Weibo, although some wondered how many of them were active and authentic Weibo users. Will Li be able to win back the favor of his fans? The numbers will tell.

By Manya Koetse and Miranda Barnes

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©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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