Huawei is undercutting Apple in China
iPhone sales in China fell by 19 percent in the first quarter of 2024: Apple suffers from renewed competition from Huawei. All the details
Apple reported a 19 percent decline in iPhone sales in China during the quarter ended in March: this is – according to data processed by Counterpoint – the worst result for the company's flagship device since the beginning of 2020, when the coronavirus crisis has begun.
APPLE LOSES MARKET IN CHINA
Apple is blaming competition from Chinese smartphone manufacturers, in particular from Huawei (which is experiencing a strong recovery), but also from Honor and Xiaomi. Overall, China's phone market grew 1.5 percent last quarter; Apple ranked third in market share , after Vivo and Honor. Huawei is in fourth place.
Compared with the first quarter of 2023, Apple's market share in China fell to 15.7 percent in January-March 2024, from 19.7 percent. Huawei, on the other hand, has grown a lot – it was at 9.3 percent a year ago, while now it is at 15.5 percent -, challenging Apple in the premium , i.e. high-priced, segment of smartphones.
The iPhone's poor performance is particularly notable because the first quarter of the year contains the Lunar New Year, a holiday period that in China is associated with large purchases. Prior to Counterpoint's analysis, IDC had already reported a nearly 10 percent decline in iPhone shipments globally in the first three months of 2024, casting doubt on the company's ability to sustain its growth. According to Counterpoint, iPhone sales in China fell 24 percent in the first six weeks of 2024.
THE RETURN OF HUAWEI
As Bloomberg points out, China remains one of Apple's main markets, but operations have become more complicated especially since authorities have banned the use of foreign technology devices in government agencies and state-owned companies.
Consumers also seem to prefer Huawei, which returned to the spotlight last summer with a smartphone – the Mate 60 Pro – containing a seven-nanometer chip that Chinese companies were thought not capable of producing , given US restrictions on technological exports to the country. In a note, Counterpoint explains that "Apple's sales were subdued in the quarter, as Huawei's return had a direct impact on Apple in the premium segment."
HOW APPLE'S RATING IS GOING
Apple is no longer the most valuable company in the world: it has given up first place in the ranking to Microsoft (another US technology company), while maintaining a very high market valuation of around 2,560 billion dollars. Since the beginning of 2024, Apple shares have fallen by 14 percent, partly due to a general perception that the company has lagged behind its competitors in the development of artificial intelligence .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/apple-cina-calo-vendite-iphone/ on Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:53:19 +0000.