Apple Q4 revenue falls due to iPad sales drop

Apple Inc experienced a 3 percent revenue decline from the previous quarter in China for its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter ended September 27, which analysts said Tuesday was caused mainly by the decline of iPad sales in the market.

Overall, Apple's quarterly global revenue grew 13 percent from the previous quarter to $42.1 billion, while its China revenue was $5.8 billion, according to the company's financial report posted on its website Monday (US time).

Apple's iPad mini does not seem very appealing to Chinese consumers after the company decided to launch large-screen smartphones in the market, Li Yi, secretary-general of the China Mobile Internet Industry Alliance, told the Global Times Tuesday.

The iPhone 6 Plus is especially preferred, featuring a 5.5-inch display which is a little bit smaller than the 7.9-inch iPad mini, but iPad mini cannot be used to make phone calls, said Li.

Apple faces lots of competition from domestic Chinese brands such as Lenovo in the tablet market and iPad users usually replace their devices after a longer time compared to iPhone users, he noted.

A survey of 2,000 US iPhone and iPad users by US-based research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners as quoted by domestic media portal tech.qq.com showed in March that iPhone users always chose to buy a newly launched iPhone within two years, while for the iPad, the replacement period took two to four years or even longer.

Li also believed that the recent subsidy reductions for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus by Chinese telecom carriers may cause a small setback for Apple in China in the next three to five years.

China Mobile, the country's largest telecom carrier by subscribers, decided on Friday to reduce its subsidies for its iPhone 6 contract package plan, following the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council's July policy requiring Chinese telecom operators to cut marketing costs by 20 percent within three years.

Experts said that cutting user subsidies is expected to be a way of lowering marketing costs.