China, Apple’s third-largest market, had mixed reviews of the iPhone 15 on Wednesday. While some internet users preferred Huawei’s new smartphone, many liked its speedier CPU and greater gaming skills.
For the American tech giant, which on Tuesday announced its new iPhone series, China continues to be crucial. Due in part to U.S. export restrictions decimating Huawei Technologies’ smartphone business, the company holds a dominant position in China’s premium smartphone market, but it has also come under fire in the lead-up to the release of the iPhone 15.
Following news that state-run businesses and government organisations in China were forbidding employees from using smartphones, as well as Huawei’s unveiling of a new smartphone with a cutting-edge technology, Apple and its suppliers’ stock prices took a beating last week.
As new models have in the past, the introduction of Apple’s iPhone 15 sparked lively conversation online on Wednesday.
On the social media site Weibo, debates about the new release received 380 million views, and the iPhone 15 was the subject of more than 800,000 posts, comments, and likes.
Many applauded Apple’s claim that the iPhone 15 Pro can play console-quality games like “Resident Evil 4 Remake” and its new 3 nanometer technology, which will appeal to China’s army of mobile gamers.
In a social media poll conducted by the Chinese news portal Sina, 61,000 respondents chose the Huawei Mate 60 over 24,000 respondents who preferred the iPhone 15.
Discussions about how the iPhone 15 could only send satellite messages while the Mate 60 Pro could make and receive calls through satellite also sparked a lot of debate.
According to one user, “The iPhone 15 can only send SOS messages via satellite, using last-generation technology already deployed in Huawei’s Mate 60, which supports full satellite calling.”
Analysts warned that China’s smartphone market, like the entire industry, is in a recession and that this, together with the nation’s faltering economy, could affect sales of the iPhone 15.
The exceptional discounts of up to 10% that Apple’s third-party dealers offered on the iPhone 14 Pro in February benefited sales but analysts warned that they could hurt demand for the most recent series.
