Apple had a spectacular 2023 in world smartphone shipments, surpassing Samsung (and everybody else) for a complete yr for the primary time ever, however whereas it might appear slightly early to leap to conclusions, 2024 is shaping as much as be a considerably worse yr for iPhone gross sales.
That is as a result of mentioned gross sales figures have fallen off a cliff in January and February in China, in keeping with native state information
cited by Bloomberg today. Granted, that is solely two months and one nation, however the decline throughout these two months appears to be like unhealthy sufficient to compromise the corporate’s full-year efficiency on the planet’s single greatest smartphone market.
We’re speaking a large 33 p.c drop from 3.6 million items in February 2023 to only 2.4 mil final month, which got here after a stunning 39 p.c fall from a minimum of 9 million shipments in China in January 2023 to a measly 5.5 million items throughout the first 31 days of 2024.
That brings Apple’s regional gross sales whole for the primary two months of this yr to below 8 million items, in comparison with a then-towering 12.6 million in January and February of final yr. iPhones managed to prime the Chinese language market in each Q1 2023 and on the finish of 2023, thoughts you, narrowly beating Honor, Oppo, and Vivo’s Android armies, which might be protected to imagine won’t occur once more in 2024.
As a substitute of these three manufacturers, Huawei is broadly anticipated to return to a home primary place it final held just a few years in the past. The resurgent Chinese language firm will doubtless climb the worldwide chart as effectively in 2024, though we extremely doubt its Western outcomes will probably be robust sufficient to match Apple or Samsung’s worldwide cargo tallies.
However, China’s whole smartphone market appears to be like to be in a world of hassle in the mean time, shedding “virtually a 3rd” of its February 2023 gross sales in February 2024. Total progress is one way or the other nonetheless predicted for “the course of the yr”, though Apple is unlikely to get in on that pattern, with iPhone shipments as a substitute anticipated to “hold deteriorating.”
For what it is value, the Cupertino-based tech big stays China’s solely “main international participant”, which can not present a lot comfort if iPhones turn out to be much less well-liked than their Huawei, Honor, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi-branded rivals within the area.
