Apple has a big problem in China, and it's only getting worse

Apple has a big problem in China, and it’s only getting worse،

Apple had a spectacular 2023 in terms of global smartphone shipments, outpacing Samsung (and everyone else) for an entire year for the first time, but while it may seem a little early to jump to conclusions, 2024 s is shaping up to be a much worse year. for iPhone sales.

Indeed, sales figures fell in January and February in China, according to local state data. quoted by Bloomberg today. Granted, that's only two months and one country, but the drop in those two months appears severe enough to jeopardize the company's annual performance in the world's largest smartphone market.

We're talking a massive 33% drop, from 3.6 million units in February 2023 to just 2.4 million last month, after a shocking 39% drop from as many as 9 million shipments to China in January 2023 at a meager 5.5 million units over the past month. the first 31 days of 2024.

That brings Apple's regional sales total for the first two months of this year to fewer than 8 million units, down from 12.6 million then in January and February of last year. Mind you, iPhones managed to dominate the Chinese market in Q1 2023 and late 2023, narrowly beating the Android armies of Honor, Oppo, and Vivo, which is probably safe to assume won't happen again in 2024 .

Instead of these three brands, Huawei is widely expected to return to the domestic number one position it held a few years ago. The resurgent Chinese company will also likely climb the global rankings in 2024, although we highly doubt its Western results will be strong enough to match the global shipments of Apple or Samsung.

On the other hand, the entire Chinese smartphone market currently appears to be struggling, losing “nearly a third” of its sales from February 2023 to February 2024. Overall growth is still forecast for “the course of the year.” year “. , although Apple is unlikely to follow this trend, with iPhone shipments expected to “continue to deteriorate.

For what it's worth, the Cupertino-based tech giant remains China's only “major foreign player”, which might not provide much consolation if iPhones become less popular than branded rivals Huawei, Honor, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi in the region.