Apple's growth rate slows in Chinese smartphone market, report says

Posted:
in iPhone
Apple's iPhone continued to increase its share of the lucrative Chinese smartphone market during the three-month period ending in January, but growth rates reached a nadir not seen since 2014, according to the latest research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.



The research firm notes that while Apple's iOS was the most popular brand in China for the January quarter with a 25 percent marketshare, year-over-year growth rates slowed to their lowest levels since late-2014. A closer analysis of the numbers reveals consumers were likely waiting for Chinese New Year deals.

"Looking at the three months individually, January was the weakest month for Apple in China as more price-sensitive consumers might have been waiting to see what promotions Chinese New Year would bring in early February," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar.

Supporting the theory is Apple's worldwide marketshare, which remained relatively steady over the same period.

On a device basis, Apple owned the market with iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 coming in as the top three best-selling smartphones. Second-place manufacturer Huawei took 24.3 percent of sales, while Xiaomi came in third after shedding 10.2 points year-over-year.

Overall, however, iOS is far behind Android's 73.9 percent marketshare. Google's operating system is consistently dominant in burgeoning markets, mostly thanks to a comparatively low licensing overhead that allows local OEMs to produce low-cost phones.

In January, Kantar put Apple's share of the Chinese smartphone market at 27.1 percent, with iPhone models taking the top three spots in per-device sales.

Beyond China, Apple is bracing for its first-ever iPhone sales decline since the popular smartphone launched in 2007. The company is modeling the sales contraction for the current March quarter, noting a tough compare to last year's unexpectedly high sales.

For the most recent quarter ending in December, Apple sold a record 74.8 million units and raked in $18.4 billion in profit on $75.9 billion in revenue.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    ac1234ac1234 Posts: 138member
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.
    entropyscnocbui
  • Reply 2 of 18
    rezwitsrezwits Posts: 878member
    From Zero to a Billion in 6 seconds flat, and growth has stopped! DAMN!
    Rayz2016
  • Reply 3 of 18
    When a company already owns close to 100% of the profits in the smartphone market worldwide, growth is not going to be explosive anymore. They've already sucked almost all the oxygen out of the room already. 
    jony0Rayz2016badmonk
  • Reply 4 of 18
    ac1234 said:
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.
    Nothing too shocking here ^ Same old, same old unknowledgeable BS by someone who thinks they know better than everyone else. Example: From an investor perspective the following is fact and not useless hyperbole as is the OP's comment. % Return over the last 10 years AAPL 28.02 Consumer Electronics 16.02 SP 500 TR USD 6.71 +/- Consumer Electronic 12.00 +/- SP 500 TR USD 5.72 Beyond the now? We will see. Hyper growth has most likely ended and value growth is the pr=icture for the future. T/he OP should stick to something other than this part of Apple. His financial and investment knowledge is close to zero. He can't even get the picture clear on what has already happened during the time period he is commenting on.
    edited March 2016 londorsessamoidjony0JamesBBafrodribadmonk
  • Reply 5 of 18
    ac1234ac1234 Posts: 138member
    Look at the trend line - what has happened since mid 2012 is ZERO capital appreciation.  You are clearly the one with zero vision of what is happening.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    isteelersisteelers Posts: 738member
    tommikele said:
    ac1234 said:
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.
    Nothing too shocking here ^ Same old, same old unknowledgeable BS by someone who thinks they know better than everyone else. Example: From an investor perspective the following is fact and not useless hyperbole as is the OP's comment. % Return over the last 10 years AAPL 28.02 Consumer Electronics 16.02 SP 500 TR USD 6.71 +/- Consumer Electronic 12.00 +/- SP 500 TR USD 5.72 Beyond the now? We will see. Hyper growth has most likely ended and value growth is the pr=icture for the future. T/he OP should stick to something other than this part of Apple. His financial and investment knowledge is close to zero. He can't even get the picture clear on what has already happened during the time period he is commenting on.
    There's one in every forum. 
  • Reply 7 of 18
    jony0jony0 Posts: 378member
    isteelers said:
    tommikele said:
    Nothing too shocking here ^ Same old, same old unknowledgeable BS by someone who thinks they know better than everyone else. Example: From an investor perspective the following is fact and not useless hyperbole as is the OP's comment. % Return over the last 10 years AAPL 28.02 Consumer Electronics 16.02 SP 500 TR USD 6.71 +/- Consumer Electronic 12.00 +/- SP 500 TR USD 5.72 Beyond the now? We will see. Hyper growth has most likely ended and value growth is the pr=icture for the future. T/he OP should stick to something other than this part of Apple. His financial and investment knowledge is close to zero. He can't even get the picture clear on what has already happened during the time period he is commenting on.
    There's one in every forum. 
    You wish, I wish, we all wish there would be only one. So far so good here but the FBI kerfuffle certainly shot that number way up.
    As for the clueless wonder's wanders, I'm not even going to start on his drivel. Okay maybe just one, the very first. There are no plans for liquid metal springs, the new patent wants to replace the current technique of using metal springs with a liquid metal strain gauge, therefore replacing the electro-mechanical switch with an electrical sensor. I can't really fault him for that mistake since there's a bit of technical aptitude required, yet his other fallacies would've been clearly much simpler to grasp.
  • Reply 8 of 18
    ac1234ac1234 Posts: 138member
    jony0 said:
    isteelers said:
    There's one in every forum. 
    You wish, I wish, we all wish there would be only one. So far so good here but the FBI kerfuffle certainly shot that number way up.
    As for the clueless wonder's wanders, I'm not even going to start on his drivel. Okay maybe just one, the very first. There are no plans for liquid metal springs, the new patent wants to replace the current technique of using metal springs with a liquid metal strain gauge, therefore replacing the electro-mechanical switch with an electrical sensor. I can't really fault him for that mistake since there's a bit of technical aptitude required, yet his other fallacies would've been clearly much simpler to grasp.
    Sounds like a spring to me:




    cnocbui
    lm1.jpg 73.4K
  • Reply 9 of 18
    brakkenbrakken Posts: 687member
    ac1234 said:
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.
    At what point is taking all the profits of a market 'floundering'?
  • Reply 10 of 18
    jkichlinejkichline Posts: 1,369member
    ac1234 said:
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.
    You must be fun at parties.
    JamesBB
  • Reply 11 of 18
    The smartphone market is essentially saturated, the explosive growth phase is over. Now it's matured and sales are predicated on replacements. It's as simple as that for now. Emerging markets is the only place where any more growth is possible. The noise level of sales is based on new phone cycles. 
  • Reply 12 of 18
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    ac1234 said:
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.

    Wow, what an astoundingly brain-dead soup of meaningless and inaccurate word vomit. Amazing. Lets analyze your shitty list:

    - Uh, Apple is doing the very opposite of "tossing things at the wall", unlike most tech companies out there. But sure, ok. 
    - Liquid metal button springs: What the fuck are you talking about, and how is a possible internal component of future products classified as "throwing things at the wall"?
    - Homekit is a home automation framework that is picking up more support everyday. Would you pefer Apple NOT get into this space? Why is this bad?
    - Healthkit: This isn't a consumer product, its an incredibly ambitious and clever framework which can and will have a deep impact in health and collecting vital data for research
    Apple Watch: Only the most successful wearable on the planet by far. Yeah, what a fucking failure. 
    - "declining iPad importance": Uh, what? Again, the iPad is the most successful and used tablet on the planet. The iPad Pro is the biggest change in iPad in years. Sure, iPads are being cannibalized by iPhone sales, but so what? Is every fucking product supposed to have the EXACT SAME level of sales and importance?
    - "The iTunes Music": No clue what this even means. 
    -"Media mess": Again, what? 
    -"Add your own"- why not, you've pulled the rest out of your ass anyway, so might as well add more. 
    - "Buybacks" - Investors like you have been demanding this forever- and not a shred of evidence that anything is "wasted" unless you have the foresight, patience, and timeline of a gnat. 
    - "absurdly expensive spaceship buildings"- Yeah, that fucking idiot Cook and his shitty expensive buildings. Oh wait, that entire HQ was dreamed up and planned by Steve Jobs. As for expensive, it's a drop in the damn bucket, and the richest company on the planet should spare no expense in designing its future HQ. 
    - "non-performing executives" Those individuals you listed have more talent in a finger than a shitty, lying troll like you can attain in 20 lifetimes. 

    Cook has already solidified his legacy, by exploding Apple's success, expanding their reach, improving their HW and SW, not to mention elevating the company on so many other levels, and besides even his extremely ethical and noble stances. His leadership on privacy is frankly heroic, and he's fighting for things that people like you don't even deserve or appreciate. Oh, and he's also smashed every conceivable sales, revenue, and profit records while he's at it. Again, not concepts a shitty troll like you would ever understand and appreciate. 
    edited March 2016 badmonk
  • Reply 13 of 18
    So. A new market opens, or a new product launches. Day 0, sales = 0
    If one product is sold, then growth has increased by 100%, early growth is explosive, because it's starting from zero.

    Can someone explain to me why in a world of establishing market places and product ranges 'experts' expect growth to continue at the same rate as launch day? It's nonsense. Apple make great products, on average, I'd guess (and this is based on only my own experience) iPads are upgraded every two years, phones a similar 18 months to 2 years.

    So why the fixation at slowing growth rates, especially when apple are making the majority of the profit in the mobile sector and are the dominant brand?

    Genuinely confused - why is this being reported as of concern?
  • Reply 14 of 18
    afrodriafrodri Posts: 190member
    nelmat said:

    Genuinely confused - why is this being reported as of concern?
    Because a lot of stock market players expect continual growth or they see a company as performing poorly. If enough stock players see a company as performing poorly, they value that company less and the stock price goes down.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    jony0jony0 Posts: 378member
    ac1234 said:
    jony0 said:
    You wish, I wish, we all wish there would be only one. So far so good here but the FBI kerfuffle certainly shot that number way up.
    As for the clueless wonder's wanders, I'm not even going to start on his drivel. Okay maybe just one, the very first. There are no plans for liquid metal springs, the new patent wants to replace the current technique of using metal springs with a liquid metal strain gauge, therefore replacing the electro-mechanical switch with an electrical sensor. I can't really fault him for that mistake since there's a bit of technical aptitude required, yet his other fallacies would've been clearly much simpler to grasp.
    Sounds like a spring to me:


    Oh sure, It sure does ‘sound’ like a spring … to you, as well as to my mother and grandchild, and for you and them and whoever actually liked his reply, I’ll just leave it at that.

    But just to clarify to other readers who might have been unsure about its true nature, just a reminder that, as we all know, a spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. In a conventional electrical switch including the current Home button, this property is put to effect so that the pressure used to push on the dome will deform it to the extent that it can reach and touch the other piece of metal used as the other side of an electrical contact. This forms what is known as a spring loaded electrical switch. The energy stored in the spring then enables it to restore that mechanical energy and return the dome to its original non electrically contacting position. They are also used in older trackpads which stores the mechanical energy of a click to bring back the pad to its resting place.

    The new proposed Home button would use a strain gauge sensor instead of an electrical switch, therefore eliminating the need of a spring and electrical contacts. A strain gauge is also basically the same concept behind the newer trackpads such as the one in the new MacBook and Magic Trackpad II, as well as other implementations such as Force Touch, 3D Touch and many new weighing scales. As those of us fortunate enough to own and use one or more of these nice newer devices can attest, no mechanical movement is involved whatsoever, so there’s no need to store energy or use a spring. A strain gauge will deform slightly when pressed of course, but it is microscopic and that property is not used to store and subsequently restore any mechanical energy, that of course, would require a spring.

    If that was too long of an answer, just do what this guy does, just say it ‘sounds’ like a spring to people who don’t know or don't care or wouldn't understand the distinction.

  • Reply 16 of 18
    ac1234ac1234 Posts: 138member
    brakken said:
    ac1234 said:
    Nothing too shocking here.  It underscores the need to have EXCITING new products - one or two that are game changers.  Apple is more and more looking like the floundering efforts at Yahoo!  Tossing a bunch of things at the wall and hope something really sticks.

    Liquid metal button springs / Homekit / Healthkit / Apple Watch / declining iPad importance / the iTunes music / media mess / add you own____________________.

    Billions wasted on useless buybacks / absurdly expensive spaceship buildings / non performing executives (Cook, Cue , Angela,________).

    Cook is going to go down as the architect of Apple's developing lost decade from an investor perspective.
    At what point is taking all the profits of a market 'floundering'?
    That is a solid point as relates to the smart phones.  However, as that market saturates and slows we will see growing pressure on the numbers impacting stock price.  The stock has been a dog of a performer for over three years now - it will get worse if Cook can't innovate beyond what Steve and his team did.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    ac1234ac1234 Posts: 138member

    jony0 said:

    Oh sure, It sure does ‘sound’ like a spring … to you, as well as to my mother and grandchild, and for you and them and whoever actually liked his reply, I’ll just leave it at that.

    But just to clarify to other readers who might have been unsure about its true nature, just a reminder that, as we all know, a spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. In a conventional electrical switch including the current Home button, this property is put to effect so that the pressure used to push on the dome will deform it to the extent that it can reach and touch the other piece of metal used as the other side of an electrical contact. This forms what is known as a spring loaded electrical switch. The energy stored in the spring then enables it to restore that mechanical energy and return the dome to its original non electrically contacting position. They are also used in older trackpads which stores the mechanical energy of a click to bring back the pad to its resting place.

    The new proposed Home button would use a strain gauge sensor instead of an electrical switch, therefore eliminating the need of a spring and electrical contacts. A strain gauge is also basically the same concept behind the newer trackpads such as the one in the new MacBook and Magic Trackpad II, as well as other implementations such as Force Touch, 3D Touch and many new weighing scales. As those of us fortunate enough to own and use one or more of these nice newer devices can attest, no mechanical movement is involved whatsoever, so there’s no need to store energy or use a spring. A strain gauge will deform slightly when pressed of course, but it is microscopic and that property is not used to store and subsequently restore any mechanical energy, that of course, would require a spring.

    If that was too long of an answer, just do what this guy does, just say it ‘sounds’ like a spring to people who don’t know or don't care or wouldn't understand the distinction.

    It is a freak'n spring - get over it.  It is not going to move the AAPL needle, change the user experience or add to the product portfolio.
    gatorguy
  • Reply 18 of 18
    badmonkbadmonk Posts: 1,285member
    The article is referring to Market Share, not growth in sales.  The thing is that the total Chinese pie will grow over time as the middle class expands.  It makes sense that a fixed proportion of the Chinese population will be able to afford the more expensive iPhone so one would expect expansion to a fixed portion of the population but in China growth still happens.
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