Apple's First Chinese Press Event Was Kind Of Sad

The company's overseas push was so important, in fact, that for the first time, Apple held a press event for Chinese journalists in the country to coincide with the full reveal.

Amidst all the news of new iPhones and potential digit thievery, the underlying message of Apple's latest smartphone reveal was a focus on emerging markets, such as the one in China. The overseas push was so important, in fact, that for the first time, Apple held a press event for Chinese journalists in the country to coincide with the full reveal.

Adding insult to injury over the 5C's inflated price in China, it appears that the press event was also pretty mundane, according to a report from Bloomberg:

The 100 or so local and foreign journalists invited to Apple's China headquarters on the 12th floor of China World Tower 3 were shown a rebroadcast of the press conference nine hours earlier in Cupertino, California.

Thanks to a complex network of fiber optic cables known as the Internet, everyone and their tech-savvy mother was live-blogging or -tweeting the news from the press conference, and so the journalists in attendance might not have enjoyed the privilege of sitting through 90 minutes of information they almost definitely already knew.

As for China-specific information, "Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu declined to comment on the status of talks with China Mobile and why Apple finally decided to hold its first such event in Beijing."

The Cupertino company is facing an uphill battle in the region, as Businessweek cites flagging iPhone sales in China, as well as a perception problem.

In fact, a fair number of [the cafe's] customers are still using older iPhones, but they expressed mixed feelings about whether they’ll stick with Apple in the future—or opt instead for the larger Android-powered Samsung Galaxy smartphone, which is fast gaining popularity here. The iPhone 5C is routinely mocked as “not attractive.”

It's been a full day and a half since the 5C stepped into the spotlight, and mockery of it has already become "routine." Apple's stock fell 5.44% on Wednesday, to around $467 per share.