Apple’s smartphone sales in China fell 19.1% in the first quarter of 2024, according to a report released Tuesday by Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research, highlighting the challenges facing the iPhone maker as it loses ground. in front of local competitors in the largest smartphone market in the world.
According to the report, in the first quarter of 2024, iPhone devices accounted for 15.7% of total smartphone sales in China, down from 19.7% year-over-year.
China’s Huawei, Apple’s key challenger in the premium market segment, experienced a major recovery with sales jumping 69.7% year-on-year in the first quarter — driven by the successful launch of its Mate 60 series of devices with an advanced chip capable of 5G networks.
Although Apple remained slightly ahead of Huawei with a market share of 15.5%, the iPhone maker fell from first to third behind Chinese brands Vivo and former Huawei subsidiary Honor.
Bloomberg reported that Apple’s sharp decline in the first quarter was its worst performance in the Chinese smartphone market since 2020.
Forbes has reached out to Apple for comment.
Senior research analyst at Counterpoint, Ivan Lam, said: “Apple’s sales were subdued during the quarter as Huawei’s return directly impacted Apple in the premium segment. In addition, requests to replace Apple devices were slightly lower compared to previous years.”
The China sales data comes just a week after research firm IDC reported that shipments of iPhone devices in the first quarter of 2024 fell 9.6% year-on-year. The drop in shipments meant that Apple relinquished the position of top phone maker to Samsung — which shipped 60.1 million phones in the first quarter compared to Apple’s 50.1 million.
Unlike iPhone devices, total shipments of smartphones in the first quarter increased by 7.8% thanks to growth in shipments of Chinese brands. Although it ranks sixth in its home country, China’s Xiaomi shipped 40.8 million phones worldwide in the first quarter — third behind Samsung and Apple — and reported a massive 33.8% growth.
The report comes on the back of what has been a poor 2024 so far for Apple, which started the year as the world’s most valuable company. In February, Apple reportedly abandoned an ambitious 10-year internal effort to build an autonomous car. Apple investors have also expressed concern that the company could fall behind rivals like Microsoft, Google and Meta in the AI race.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Apple has held talks with Google about integrating its Gemini artificial intelligence service into the iPhone — seen as a sign that Apple’s internal AI efforts are still well behind rivals. The company also faces its biggest legal and regulatory threat in years after the Justice Department and several states filed a historic lawsuit in March accusing the company of violating antitrust laws through restrictive policies that hurt competitors and consumers.
Apple’s share price has fallen 10.67% since the beginning of this year.
Siladitya Ray, Forbes journalist
