Apple's growth rate slows in Chinese smartphone market, report says
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.
Source: Kantar Worldpanel
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.
Source: Kantar Worldpanel
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
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.
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.
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.
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.