iPhone sales in China fell for the fourth successive month, amidst a sharp decline across all non-Chinese brands.
Official data revealed that shipments of foreign-branded smartphones were down 47% year-on-year, explaining Apple’s rare decision to discount the cost of current iPhone models in the country …
iPhone sales in China
iPhone sales in China have been under growing pressure in recent years, due to a combination of government pressure on consumers to buy Chinese brands, and the surprise re-emergence of Huawei as a premium smartphone competitor.
Pressure on Chinese citizens has been growing for years, set in motion by a trade war with the US back in 2019.
Using an iPhone in China is now seen as embarrassing by some consumers, says a local report. The combined impact of the Trump administration’s trade war on China and export blacklisting of Huawei is further strengthening the ‘Boycott Apple’ movement in the country.
For a couple of years Apple was protected by a ban on the export of 5G chips to China, meaning that Huawei could no longer effectively compete with iPhones. However, the Chinese brand somehow managed to source 5G chips in 2023, allowing it to once again compete against Apple.
Apple has been reluctant to respond with official discounts, preferring to quietly offer price drops to third-party resellers which are then passed on to consumers. However, the company began officially discounting iPhones back in 2022, and has done so on a number of occasions since then. The latest example is a new year promotion beginning tomorrow.
Foreign smartphone sales continue to fall
It’s not just Apple: new government data cited by Reuters showed that sales of all non-Chinese smartphone brands continued to fall.
Shipments to China of foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple’s iPhone, fell by 47.4% in November from a year earlier, according to data released on Friday from a government-affiliated research firm, down for the fourth month […]
The decline follows October’s 44.25% year-on-year drop in foreign smartphone shipments, extending a downward trend in the world’s largest smartphone market.
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