China Not Excited for iPhone 7 Release; Market on a ‘Wait and See’ State

The iPhone 7 release is drawing near and compared to the buzz prior the release of the iPhone 6, Chinese consumers are on a "wait and see" mode.

Observers say that posts in Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, were 15 times more than the posts for the iPhone 7.

Apple is facing challenges in the Chinese market as consumers are now preferring cheaper locally made smartphones which offer similar specifications to the iPhone.

Sales were down by $8.8 billion and the California-based manufacturer is only fifth in market ranking. According to IDC, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Oppo and Vivo together accounted for 47 percent.

Although some buyers remain excited. Wang Yue, a student from Beijing said, "I'm looking forward to the launch, but I won't rush to buy anything. I want to know what new functions it's got. My feeling is there are no real major changes from the 6S, so I think I'll hold off for a while."

Some consumers say that they will wait for the price of the iPhone 7 to drop and some said that they will just buy an older iPhone model.

Ben Cavender, Shanghai-based director at China Market Research Group, said that market seems to be "muted". He said, "The word among consumers is the updates are not going to be revolutionary, but smaller changes."

Last year, sales of the iPhone 6 soared to 71 percent. The slow decline in sales occurred afterwards, according to Strategy Analytics.

"Apple is struggling with consumer 'iPhone fatigue' in China, while competition from Huawei, Oppo and others remains fierce," said Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston.

Another observer thinks that since it's been only a year since the launch of iPhone 6, consumers are waiting to see iPhone 8.

"Because it's just one year, lots of people are choosing to wait for the iPhone 8. The changes with the 8 will be much bigger, which I think will be a drag on sales of the new phone this year, said Wang Bo, a finance worker at a securities firm in Shanghai.