China government action could hurt Apple iPhone sales

By | May 30, 2014

Scalper1 News

Two government initiatives in China could hurt Apple’s iPhone sales in the near term, UBS analyst Steven Milunovich warned in a research report Friday. China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) is urging the three wireless carriers to reduce their sales and marketing costs and also is taking the lead to form a tower-building company to manage mobile base stations. “Our telco team sees these two factors potentially curbing the pace of the LTE and TD-LTE roll-out in 2014-15,” Milunovich wrote. UBS estimates that China Mobile ‘s (CHL) goal of adding 80 million to 90 million 4G TD-LTE subscribers this year could be cut in half to 30 million to 40 million. China Mobile is the country’s largest wireless carrier. The Chinese agency is considering a plan for its three wireless carriers to reduce marketing costs by 20%, which would lower subsidies for high-end smartphones such as Apple ‘s … Scalper1 News

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