(Provides earnings context in paragraph 3, share motion in paragraph in 4)
By Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh
BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) – Apple’s iPhone gross sales in China fell 24% year-on-year within the first six weeks of 2024, based on analysis agency Counterpoint, because the U.S. firm confronted elevated competitors from home rivals equivalent to Huawei.
The U.S. tech big’s chief competitor in China in premium smartphones, Huawei, noticed unit gross sales rise by 64% within the interval, based on the report.
This might fan fears of a slowdown in demand for the U.S. firm, whose income forecast for the present quarter was $6 billion under Wall Avenue expectations.
Shares of the iPhone maker have been down 1.6% in premarket buying and selling on Tuesday and have misplaced about 10% of their worth to date this 12 months, underperforming their large tech friends in america.
Counterpoint’s report stated Apple’s share of the Chinese language smartphone market dropped to fifteen.7%, placing it in fourth place, in contrast with second place within the year-ago interval when it had 19% market share.
Huawei rose to second place as its market share expanded to 16.5% from 9.4% a 12 months earlier. The general smartphone market in China shrank 7%, the report stated.
Apple “confronted stiff competitors on the excessive finish from a resurgent Huawei whereas getting squeezed within the center on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi,” Counterpoint’s senior analyst Mengmeng Zhang stated.
Apple started subsidizing sure iPhone fashions by as a lot as 1,300 yuan ($180.68) final week via flagship shops on Tmall, Alibaba’s main market platform.
It had already supplied iPhone reductions of as much as 500 yuan on its official websites final month.
Huawei has seen a resurgence in its premium smartphone gross sales because it launched its Mate 60 sequence in August after struggling for years with U.S. curbs on the exports of key elements to the corporate.
Honor, the smartphone model spun off from Huawei in 2020, was the one different top-five model to see unit gross sales improve through the first six weeks of the 12 months, up 2%. Chinese language manufacturers Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo dropped 15%, 7% and 29%, respectively. (Reporting by Yelin Mo and Brenda Goh; Further reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Modifying by Jacqueline Wong, Kirsten Donovan and Arun Koyyur)
