Apple’s CNY sales may bring second holiday boost

Apple, which posted 70 percent revenue growth in China last quarter, may get another boost from the shopping season tied to the Chinese New Year in February.
The holiday, which falls on Feb. 19 this year, is regarded as the most important one in China and is traditionally celebrated with gifts, especially luxury goods.
“This quarter is a heavy gifting quarter because of Chinese New Year so it’s in essence the Christmas for the rest of the world,” said Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies Inc. The iPhone in “China is easily going to do better than the U.S. this quarter,” he said.
Some analysts had predicted Apple would sell more iPhones in China than in the U.S. in the quarter that ended in December. That hasn’t happened yet, even though iPhone unit sales doubled in mainland China for that period, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said Tuesday in an interview. Shipments of the smartphone rose 44 percent in the U.S. in the quarter, he said.
“We have a lot of momentum in China,” Maestri said. “Chinese New Year is a very important part of the cycle in China, and so we hope to take advantage of that.”
The company began selling its biggest smartphones yet, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, in China in October. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, who has said he expects the country to eventually overtake the U.S. to become Apple’s largest market, announced plans that same month to boost the number of retail stores there to about 40 from 15 in the coming years.
“When I look at China, I see an enormous market where there are more people graduating into the middle class than any nation on earth in history, and just an incredible market where people want the latest technology and products that we’re providing,” Cook told analysts on an October conference call. “And so we’re investing like crazy in the market.” Bloomberg