At a time when Chinese smartphones are upping the ante and grabbing market share off international brands, Apple isn't doing itself any favors. The US tech giant has acknowledged that battery age affects the performance of its phones. As this continues to develop, what are users in China saying? CGTN's Wei Lynn Tang reports.

Apple has acknowledged that slowdowns resulting from battery degradation can affect its products -- but only iPhones, and not its other devices such as iPads or MacBooks. In fact, the US tech-giant said since 2016 it has been reducing the performance of older iPhones with lower-capacity batteries, to prevent accidental shut-downs. This has garnered mixed response from one of Apple's biggest markets.

IPHONE USER "I have been using an iPhone 6 for over 3 years, and I am okay to spend over 200 yuan to change batteries. I believe electronic products are consumables, because you can't expect to use a phone for 8 to 10 years. I can accept the fact that Apple can acknowledge and seek to improve on this."

In December, Apple slashed its battery replacement price for anyone with an iPhone 6 or older – effective January and for the whole of 2018. An expat who has been working in China for 5 years says the battery in his iPhone 5 runs out too quickly. But he's still a happy iPhone user, overall.

IPHONE USER "They need to improve the battery life of the iPhones, people just get fed up of having to recharge their phones all the time and having to keep on buying new phones. Customers are already used to the operating system. It's a clever ploy to keep customers if we have to keep on buying Apple phones because we are used of the applications, I upload everything on icloud, I save my data there. I am a happy user of Apple."

But for those customers who are concerned, what can they do? Well, the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission said it has queried Apple, on the cause of the phones' performances as well as remedy measures. This comes as consumer complaints involving battery quality and accidental shut-downs increased from 964 in 2015, to over 2600 in 2017.

TAO AILIAN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND SECRETARY GENERAL SHANGHAI CONSUMER RIGHTS PROTECTION COMMISSION "From the perspective of a consumer, it is difficult for one to protect his or her own rights in this matter. And so, as a consumer rights organization and based on our statutory authorization, we represent the consumers to query these questions to Apple, and hopefully Apple will give its consumers a positive response."

WEI LYNN TANG SHANGHAI China accounted for almost 20 percent of Apple's revenue in 2017. While this share has been contracting, China is still Apple's third largest market. But there is more to their relationship than numbers. Apple and its late founder Steve Jobs are seen as icons of innovation in China. So how this latest development – regarding the slowdown of iPhones as a result of battery degradation – affects the Chinese market will be interesting. WLT, CGTN, Shanghai.