Chinese consumers won’t pay high prices for domestic mobile phones (DATA)

The success of low-priced, high-powered smartphones like Xiaomi — and Apple’s recent fall from grace in China — have made it more clear than ever that Chinese customers are looking for value in their mobile phone purchases. But if you want hard numbers on the subject, Sina Tech recently conducted an online poll that attracted more than 200,000 respondents. Among the questions it asked was: “What price would you choose to pay for a domestic mobile phone?” Here’s how people responded:

It’s already quite obvious what price range people prefer, but for the sake of emphasis here’s another way of looking at the data that shows the vast majority of poll respondents selected somewhere around 1000-2000 RMB as the correct price:

The question doesn’t specifically mention smartphones, but given that anyone reading Sina Tech to begin with is likely to own one, we can pretty much assume that’s what most respondents were thinking of. This poll, then, shows that when it comes to domestically produced smartphones, 1000-2000 RMB ($164-$327) is the sweet spot. Anything lower than that and your phone seems too cheap to be attractive. Anything higher, and people apparently aren’t willing to pay it, at least for a domestic-brand phone. Any company aiming to sell phones in China would be wise to stick to these price ranges, though. As Apple’s drop from China’s top 5 has shown, even international brands with a great reputation can be hurt by simply costing too much.