Apple's iPhone sales in China saw a significant decline in the first six weeks of this year that saw it lose the title of China's best-selling smartphone maker to a local vendor.
iPhone sales dropped by 24 percent, pushing Apple down to fourth among smartphone makers in the country, according to Counterpoint Research. Vivo took the top spot, thanks to its success in the budget segment of the market.
That's despite both companies selling fewer phones, owing to a 7 percent drop in the overall Chinese market, which is suffering the effects of a nationwide deflation.
Meanwhile, Huawei saw its market share grow to 16.5 percent from 9.4 percent, thanks to the popularity of its home-grown Mate 60 series. Apple recorded a 15.7 percent market share, falling from 19 percent a year ago, according to Counterpoint's data. Overall growth is likely to remain in the red during Q1 2024 on muted spending and a few new product launches, said the analysts.
Apple's iPhone struggled during the first few weeks of the year for several reasons, according to Counterpoint. "Primarily, it 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," said Senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.
"Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," he added.
Apple resellers in China have been increasingly dependent on discounts to shift iPhone 15 stock in a market that has entered a general malaise. The discounts followed Apple's own rare price reductions on its website ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in February.
Apple sales in China dropped 13 percent to $20.8 billion in the quarter ended December, falling short of the $23.5 billion predicted by analysts, and forecasts for a quick improvement in 2024 do not look particularly optimistic.
