Apple: iPhone China sales slide as Huawei soars.
Researchers at Counterpoint say that sales of Apple phones dropped 24% in the first six weeks of the year.
Researchers at Counterpoint say that sales of Apple phones dropped 24% in the first six weeks of the year. In the first six weeks of 2024, Apple’s sales went down 24%, but Huawei’s sales went up 64%. Huawei, a Chinese tech giant, has been a tough competitor for Apple.
Huawei has benefited from the release of its Mate 60 phone series, which has 47% Chinese-made parts and a chip made in China. But Apple’s iPhone 15 isn’t as popular with its users because it doesn’t have any big improvements over the last model.
Apple is very worried about the growing competition in the Chinese smartphone market. Last year, Apple sold 20.8 billion iPhones in China, which is a big chunk of their total $69.7 billion in phone sales.
China’s Apple smartphone market share fell to 15.7%, making it the fourth most popular phone there. In 2023, it was the second most popular phone in China. The news that Apple was having trouble with sales caused its stock to drop over 2.5% by noon.
In 2023, shares of the tech giant went up 46%. So far this year, they are down over 8%. iPhone sales were lower than expected, the company didn’t invest as much in AI as some of its Big Tech rivals, and it gave up on EVs after betting on them for ten years.
A $2 billion fine from the European Commission for antitrust violations also made monopoly issues more visible.
Vivo was still China’s best-selling smartphone maker, even though its sales dropped by 15% in the past year. After a month of discounts on its official sites in China, Apple last week lowered the prices of some iPhone models sold in its flagship shops on Tmall, Alibaba’s marketplace platform.