Apple’s iPhone gross sales in China fell 24 p.c year-on-year in the primary six weeks of 2024, in accordance with analysis agency Counterpoint, as the US firm confronted elevated competitors from home rivals such as Huawei.
The US tech large’s chief competitor in China in premium smartphones, Huawei, noticed unit gross sales rise by 64 p.c in the interval, in accordance with the report.
This may fan fears of a slowdown in demand for the US firm, whose income forecast for the present quarter was $6 billion (roughly Rs. 49,740 crore) beneath Wall Street expectations.
Shares of the iPhone maker closed 2.8 p.c decrease on Tuesday and have misplaced about 12 p.c of their worth to this point this 12 months, underperforming their massive tech friends in the United States.
Counterpoint’s report stated Apple’s share of the Chinese smartphone market dropped to fifteen.7 p.c, placing it in fourth place, in contrast with second place in the year-ago interval when it had 19 p.c market share.
Huawei rose to second place as its market share expanded to 16.5 p.c from 9.4 p.c a 12 months earlier. The total smartphone market in China shrank 7 p.c, the report stated.
Apple “faced stiff competition at the high end from a resurgent Huawei while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi,” Counterpoint’s senior analyst Mengmeng Zhang stated.
Apple started subsidizing sure iPhone fashions by as a lot as CNY 1,300 ($180.68) final week by flagship shops on Tmall, Alibaba’s main market platform.
It had already supplied iPhone reductions of as much as CNY 500 on its official websites final month.
Huawei has seen a resurgence in its premium smartphone gross sales because it launched its Mate 60 sequence in August after struggling for years with U.S. curbs on the exports of key parts to the corporate.
Honor, the smartphone model spun off from Huawei in 2020, was the one different top-five model to see unit gross sales enhance through the first six weeks of the 12 months, up 2 p.c. Chinese manufacturers Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo dropped 15 p.c, 7 p.c and 29 p.c, respectively.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
