Rising complaints will spark an investigation, affect reputation: expert
The use of Apple Inc's handsets has aroused safety concerns among Chinese users recently, as some local consumers are complaining that their iPhones caught fire and even exploded.
A Guangdong resident surnamed Pan was furious as he made such a complaint to the Global Times on Monday.
While taking a taxi in the early hours of October 10, the man's iPhone 6 in his back pocket started heating up and emitting smoke before suddenly exploding.
"I bought the phone from a Hong Kong Apple Store one and one-half years ago. It ran normally and smoothly before the incident," Pan said, claiming that the explosion caused severe burns on his buttocks.
Pan is not the only victim in China.
The Shanghai Consumer Council on Friday disclosed that from October 1 to November 30, it had received eight consumer complaints about such problems. The complaints involved the iPhone 6 as well as iPhone 6s Plus, and they all took place during normal usage.
A 27-year-old Beijing resident surnamed Chen started to worry that her iPhone 6 may also explode some day. "Now its battery sometimes heats up while charging," Chen told the Global Times Monday. She plans to complain about this to Apple.
In countries and regions beyond China, iPhones have also caught fire. Melanie Tan Pelaez, a pregnant woman in Sydney, suffered second-degree burns from her iPhone 7, local news portal news.com.au reported in mid-November.
Over the past two months, there were also 860 complaints over iPhones unexpectedly shutting down even though the batteries still had about 20 percent to 80 percent power remaining, said the council.
From January 1 to November 30, the total number of Chinese complaints against Apple Inc was up nearly 200 percent year-on-year, hitting 2,763 incidents, according to the Shanghai Consumer Council.
The U.S.-based technology powerhouse, which considers China as one of its major markets, admitted in late October that a tiny number of its iPhone 6s smartphone models may unexpectedly shut down, but it emphasized there was no safety issue. The problem was said to only affect a limited range of serial numbers that were manufactured from September to October in 2015, which are eligible for a free battery replacement.
As for the fires, the company has yet to offer explanations or solutions, according to Pan. Apple couldn't be reached for comment on this by press time.
"I called Apple's customer service line several times for an explanation and compensation. I got nothing so far; I was just told by the company that they couldn't be sure it was a problem of the phone," he said.
Consumers whose iPhones have caught fire or exploded could either file complaints to the consumer council or engage a third-party quality supervisor to look into the issue. "However, starting the legal process may take long time," said Zhao Zhanling, a legal advisor with the Internet Society of China.
"If a consumer wants to investigate the issue by himself, he has to take some residue of the exploded device and provide some evidence such as a receipt for his smartphone or videos showing it did not explode because of the consumer's improper operation," Zhao told the Global Times Monday.
The lawyer noted that this process requires time and money, which discourages some consumers including Pan from following up.
Pan now just thinks he had bad luck and has turned to a handset made by homegrown Huawei Technologies Co.
Some experts noted that the number of consumers who reported problems with iPhones is a very low percentage, so it's not a common situation.
"Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc has also seen explosion incidents with its products, but people pay more attention to Apple now," Wang Yanhui, secretary-general with the Mobile China Alliance, told the Global Times on Monday.
"We estimate that one handset among 1 million units may explode, but Apple's incidence is still below that," he said.
However, if the number of complaints rises constantly, a quality watchdog would step into Apple's case, which would affect the company's reputation in China, said Zhao.
Apple sold in total nearly 28 million units in the Chinese mainland in the first half of 2016, ranking third after Chinese smartphone makers Huawei Technologies Co and OPPO Electronics Corp, market research firm Sino Market Research said in a report released in August.
