Apple is rumored to release the budget iPhone, a.k.a iPhone 5C, next month. Analyst Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley believes that iPhone 5C might increase Apple’s market share in China. In a note to clients Huberty writes that iPhone 5C’s price in China , expected to be around RMB 4,000, will be in the acceptable price range for the market. This price is actually believed to be 22 percent higher than what analysts expect the iPhone 5C to be priced at.
Huberty makes these predictions based on a survey of 2,000 mobile phone owners in China conducted by AlphaWise. The iPhone 5C is expected to bring in a 13.3 percent gain in Apple’s smartphone market share. An additional 6 percentage gain is expected if Apple finally clinches a deal with China Mobile. Last month Apple CEO Tim Cook met with China Mobile, just last week the carrier said that it is keen to sell the iPhone, but said that commercial and technical issues remain in the way. Huberty predicts that if China Mobile sells the TDD-LTE capable variant of the iPhone 5C, the low cost smartphone might become the best selling smartphone in China. This increase in market share would mean that Apple would overtake Samsung as one of the biggest smartphone vendors in China.