Discount campaigns without success
Apple is losing ground in China – Huawei is gaining ground
March 5, 2024, 12:22 p.m
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The tech giant Apple is coming under increasing pressure in China. iPhone sales plummet in the first month and a half of the year. Apple devices are now only in fourth place. One of the reasons is the aggressive price war, which the US company can no longer escape.
In the important Chinese sales market, more and more smartphone users are turning their backs on Apple and turning to local competing products. In the first six weeks of 2024, sales of iPhones in the People’s Republic fell by almost a quarter year-on-year, said the research house Counterpoint. At the same time, Apple’s main Chinese rival Huawei increased its sales by 64 percent.
“At the high end, Apple faces strong competition from a resurgent Huawei, while at the mid-range it is pressured by aggressive pricing policies from Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi,” said Counterpoint analyst Mengmeng Zhang. The US group’s market share shrank to 15.7 from 19 percent in the reporting period, which meant that Apple slipped into fourth place among the largest smartphone providers in China. Huawei, on the other hand, almost doubled the rate to 16.5 percent and is in second place. Overall, smartphone sales in the People’s Republic have shrunk by seven percent.
Huawei introduced its new top model, the Mate 60 Pro+, last fall, shortly before the presentation of the current iPhone generation. According to experts, despite the US embargo on computer chips and other high-tech goods, it is technologically on par with Western models. Apple had already responded to lower demand in January with one of its rare discount campaigns. Chinese online retailers are currently offering the iPhone 15 with discounts of up to just under 170 euros.