China sales of iPhone show double-digit fall as domestic rivals close in

Sales of iPhones in the Chinese market posted a double-digit year-on-year decline in the first six weeks of 2024. Analysts said the US tech company is struggling in the competition with rising Chinese rivals.

According to market research organization Counterpoint Research, iPhone's sales in the Chinese market declined by 24 percent in the first six weeks of 2024, and it ranked No.4 behind three Chinese brands - Vivo, Huawei and Honor.

Counterpoint said that the fall was due to stiff competition in the high-end market from a resurgent Huawei, while Apple was squeezed in the middle market by brands such as Vivo, OPPO and Xiaomi.

In Apple's official store on Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, the price of the latest iPhone 15 with 128G storage reached 4,999 yuan ($694.37), much cheaper than the price of 5,999 yuan at the official website of Apple, a move seen as to attract more Chinese consumers on the online channel.

Apple had a roughly 13 percent year-on-year decline in sales in the greater China region in the first quarter of 2024 fiscal year that ended December 30, 2023. Quarterly earnings rose 2 percent year-on-year to $119.6 billion, according to the company's results released on February 1.

Represented by the sudden launch of Huawei's Mate 60 Pro series, various Chinese Android-oriented smartphones showed largely-upgraded performance and production capacity, Liu Dingding, a veteran industry observer, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Liu noted that the price advantage and approximate quality of domestic brands compared with iPhones affect consumers' decisions.

Counterpoint said that although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to older-generation iPhones for now.

In January, a total of 31.78 million cell phones were shipped in China, up 68.1 percent year-on-year, and 82.6 percent were domestic brands, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, indicating strong growth momentum of Chinese smartphone manufacturers.