Apple's iPhone dips to fifth place in Chinese smartphone market
Apple continued losing ground in the Chinese smartphone market in May, seeing its share drop to fifth place amid tough local competition, according to research data published on Wednesday.
The iPhone's marketshare fell to 10.8 percent from 12 percent a year prior, Counterpoint Research told Bloomberg. The top four smartphone makers -- controlling 53 percent of the market -- were all local companies, namely Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi.
Huawei in fact improved its lead to 17.3 percent, while Oppo grew rapidly, almost doubling its share year-over-year to 11 percent.
Although Apple has identified China as an important market, one potentially poised to eclipse the United States, the company saw overall sales in the "Greater China" region -- including Hong Kong and Taiwan -- drop 26 percent year-over-year in the March quarter.
June-quarter results are set to be announced on July 26, and are likely to contain more bad news about China. The company is guiding to between $41 billion and $43 billion in global revenues, a substantial fall from the $49.6 billion achieved in Q3 2015.
The iPhone's marketshare fell to 10.8 percent from 12 percent a year prior, Counterpoint Research told Bloomberg. The top four smartphone makers -- controlling 53 percent of the market -- were all local companies, namely Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi.
Huawei in fact improved its lead to 17.3 percent, while Oppo grew rapidly, almost doubling its share year-over-year to 11 percent.
Although Apple has identified China as an important market, one potentially poised to eclipse the United States, the company saw overall sales in the "Greater China" region -- including Hong Kong and Taiwan -- drop 26 percent year-over-year in the March quarter.
June-quarter results are set to be announced on July 26, and are likely to contain more bad news about China. The company is guiding to between $41 billion and $43 billion in global revenues, a substantial fall from the $49.6 billion achieved in Q3 2015.
Comments
I know China is a large market but in the end, is it really worth it? Apple catches so much crap from China with these stupid laws and lawsuits and the government makes them do all kinds of things other countries don't, etc. Is it really worth the trouble in the end? I'm sure it is millions of phones, but I wonder how much compared to other countries.
I doubt these companies will make much off Chinese consumers in terms of selling services.
http://qz.com/687017/its-official-china-is-the-largest-iphone-market-in-the-world/
10% of the China cell phone market is a VERY large number.
I think that answers your question.
And to those who might comment in this thread demanding Apple go plastic and cheap... blow it out your backdoor sphincter.
Apple has a huge crowd of customers in China that only buy Apple products. Most high-end Chinese consumers have very high brand loyalty and Apple users have some of the highest brand loyalty. Other very successful companies in China who have captured this loyalty includes Starbucks, BMW etc. They all only make premium products at a high price often even more expensive than the West.
The customers who buy Apple are completely different from the customer who buy Android anyway. Most of the people in China I know of are either always-iPhone users or always-Android users. They rarely migrate. The dip in percentage only means the low-end market is expanding but does not necessarily mean Apple's actual user base is shrinking. And that's why I don't think iPhone SE would be very popular in China. At least none of my Chinese friends are buying iPhone SE. The most popular model of iPhone in China is new iPhone 6s Plus. Yes, there might be a slight drop in sales but that's just because Apple does not have an attractive product to make people replace their old iPhones.
As for the lawsuits. These are way overblown by the media. Lawsuits against and between big companies are very common in the US as well. This is why all the big companies have huge legal teams. I worked for one of the top American game publishers for four years in Canada and there has been constant litigation from companies you have never heard of. I can assure you Apple gets sued way more often in America than in China. Companies just deal with it. Not every lawsuit have political agendas. Most of the time it's just a small company want to get a big settlement. Still remember the epic lawsuits between Apple and Samsung a few years ago?
Some of the Chinese cellphone makers are just practicing the same ideas in this market - use initial investment to push for razor thin margin and get market share, then get profitable by selling services or premium devices after the brand is well-known.
Apple's manufacturing in China gives Apple a chance of keeping a good share of the China market.
I've been told by local people from China; those in China with money much prefer the iPhone to their cheapie phones that the Gov monitors.