By Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh
BEIJING (Reuters) -Apple’s iPhone gross sales in China fell 24% year-on-year within the first six weeks of 2024, in keeping with analysis agency Counterpoint, because the U.S. firm confronted elevated competitors from home rivals similar to Huawei.
The U.S. tech large’s chief competitor in China in premium smartphones, Huawei, noticed unit gross sales rise by 64% within the interval, in keeping with the report.
Apple’s share of the Chinese language smartphone market dropped to fifteen.7%, placing it in fourth place, in contrast with second place in the identical interval of 2023 when it accounted for 19% of the market.
Huawei rose to second place as its market share expanded to 16.5% from 9.4% a 12 months earlier.
The general smartphone market in China shrank 7%, the report mentioned.
Apple “confronted stiff competitors on the excessive finish from a resurgent Huawei whereas getting squeezed within the center on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi,” mentioned Counterpoint’s senior analyst Mengmeng Zhang.
Apple started subsidizing sure iPhone fashions by as a lot as 1,300 yuan ($180.68) final week by way of flagship shops on Tmall, Alibaba’s main market platform.
It had already supplied iPhone reductions of as much as 500 yuan on its official websites final month.
Huawei has seen a resurgence in its premium smartphone gross sales because it launched its Mate 60 collection in August after struggling for years with U.S. restrictions on the exports of key elements 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 improve throughout the first six weeks of the 12 months, up 2%. Chinese language manufacturers Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo dropped 15%, 7% and 29% respectively.
(Reporting by Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh; Enhancing by Jacqueline Wong, Kirsten Donovan)
