Based on data recently published by the Chinese Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT), 3.04 million mobile phones were shipped to China from abroad last November, which is 47.4 percent less than the 5.77 million devices reported in November 2023. The falling trend also shows that the American Apple is under increasing pressure in one of the most important Chinese markets.
Although CAICT does not publish exact figures for individual manufacturers, but based on the assumption that among non-local manufacturers, Apple’s devices account for a significant part of shipments, while Samsung and other competitors carve out a much smaller slice of the market, the Cupertino the amount of mobile phones sold by may also have decreased significantly in favor of Chinese brands.
During 2023, local manufacturers, such as Huawei, battered by American sanctions, started an even more aggressive campaign than before in their own area. According to data from the research company IDC, Huawei’s growth directly exceeded Apple’s in the third quarter of last year. In the country, local competitors, especially Huawei Technologies, are squeezing the Cupertino company more and more intensively, and China is still a key market for Apple, as Tim Cook regularly tries to draw attention to during his visits.
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Apple’s challenges and responses to sales in the Chinese market are well reflected by the fact that in the last quarter of 2023, the company sold more smartphones in the country than all its competitors, but in the second quarter of last year it was already out of the top 5 sales rankings. The company hopes to increase sales from the iPhone 16 series, which also includes Apple Intelligence AI functions, but the software package is not yet available in China due to regulations. Meanwhile, Apple’s local competitors are coming up with increasingly advanced AI functions on their own devices.
It is no coincidence that, within the framework of a short promotional period, Apple is discounting hundreds of yuan from the end-user prices of almost all members of the available iPhone range in China for only three days, from January 4 to 7, during this time from the price of the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max models 500 yuan (roughly 28,000 forints), and 400 yuan (approx. 22,000 forints) for the plain 16 and 16 Plus models centrally. Promotions are also not far from Huawei, which cut prices in China on the last weekend of the year, so there were high-end products – including smartphones – whose price was reduced by 3,000 yuan (approx. HUF 164,000).
Source: www.hwsw.hu
