Chinese iPhone sales may have seen 'worst decline in two years'

Posted:
in iPhone
Suggesting Apple won't recover in the country anytime soon, the company reportedly saw its worst decline in Chinese iPhone shipments of the past two years during the March quarter.

China iPhone XS Max


Shipments were down 30 percent to 6.5 million units, according to Canalys research estimates. That left the company in a distant fifth place, trailing behind the four leading local vendors -- Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

"Apple's performance in China is concerning, given that the worst quarter for iPhone shipments is usually Q2 or Q3, not Q1 when new devices are still fresh," wrote Canalys' Mo Jia. "Apple has acted to cut iPhone retail prices, which has largely relieved the pressure from its channel partners."

The analyst noted that while the iPhone still has a Chinese install base of over 300 million people, Apple is at risk of ceding ground to Android-based competition.

"Apple faces a challenge in China to localize its software and services offerings as quickly as in Western markets," Jia continued. "Its hardware is therefore more exposed to competition in China than elsewhere. Bringing up-to-date features, such as 5G, next year, as well as localized software is vital to prevent demand shrinking further."

The overall Chinese smartphone market shrank 3 percent to 88 million units in the March quarter. The only vendor to see growth in fact was Huawei, cementing its lead by rising 41 percent to 29.9 million units. Its marketshare advanced to 34 percent, in stark contrast with Apple, which sank from 10.2 percent to 7.4.

Canalys March 2019 quarter China


Earlier this month Morgan Stanley suggested that Apple was stabilizing in China, having suffered a serious blow in the December quarter. Worldwide iPhone revenue was down 15 percent in that period, something executives blamed primarily on China.

Apple may have encountered a perfect storm partly of its own devising. The company decided to launch its most expensive iPhones ever amid a plateauing smartphone market, a weak Chinese economy, and unfavorable exchange rates. Chinese phone makers have also begun to catch up to Apple in features without burdensome import expenses.

The company is set to release official March-quarter earnings later on Tuesday, but has stopped detailing iPhone unit numbers.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    magman1979magman1979 Posts: 1,292member
    What a coincidence this comes out JUST before Apple's Q1 call, stock manipulation at it's finest and most vile!
  • Reply 2 of 7
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    Looking on the bright side there was no warning for this quarter so I imagine earnings will be in line with guidance. No severe price adjustments either.

    Of course the iPhone business will be in for some scrutiny and the ride may be bumpy through to September but, as stated, this situation is largely of Apple's own making.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    badmonkbadmonk Posts: 1,285member
    What a coincidence this comes out JUST before Apple's Q1 call, stock manipulation at it's finest and most vile!
    agree, I had the same thought and of course, since Apple does not release numbers...impossible to correct one way or another
  • Reply 4 of 7
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Ok, so Apple did better than expected, though not by a large amount. iPhone sales were down, but higher than expected. The stock is up after hours. I’m sure more will be available on this site shortly.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    AAPL up almost 5% after hours, around $209. If it holds Apple might open above $T market cap once again.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    shompashompa Posts: 343member
    When will we address the fact that Apple is losing market share in non-western countries because of Tims political views? 190 countries in the world are not western. The things that Tim fights for, that are branded "good" in the west, do not seem the same in these countries?

    Why can't Tim just not shut up about politics? 

    Tim is such a fraud. He spends per year more on R/D than Steve did during 10 years. If you are competent. Have an idea and do not design by focus groups: you do not user R/D. You buy the key technology you need.  What has Tim accomplished? 8 years and we have 1 new product Apple Watch.  The first 100% Tim supervised iPhone design (X) see a decline in sales by 30%. 

    Tim misleads the market by services label. Services that is the one thing Apple can't do better than most others. Icloud have always sucked. Subscribers are icloud + music subscribers. So Apple has 100 million + people that subscribe to some disk space on Amazon web services. Whoopie-doo.  The majority of revenue in services is Apps/Movies/music on iTunes. This is tied to sold iOS devices. That has dropped by 30%. 

    The saving grace for Apple is the oligopoly that exists in high-end phones. When Apple raised prices 30%, both Google and Sammy followed. Today its "normal" that phone cost 1000 dollar +. 

    Tim needs to go. He is worthless. Apple has spent 30+ billion dollars on Project Titan with 0 products. Apple could have bought Tesla for that money. Even today Tesla is valued to 50 billion. History should repeat itself. Apple buys Tesla and replaces Tim with Musk. The playhouse that Apple is today with Tim needs to stop.  (and this is the sad thing with age. People that are in early 20is do not understand this. Apple before Tim had quality products that worked and didn't break. Every single device before Intel works still today. Every single device I bought last 5 years have died within 2 years. That is normal today. All because Tim likes to buy companies with handsome men. (and thats is a fact. Look at Beats and so on) 

    heck. Maybe even split Apple in a phone/services part and IT part. Let Tim play with his encrypted devices so he can hide his surfing history/the strange pictures he allegedly has. 
  • Reply 7 of 7
    genovellegenovelle Posts: 1,480member
    shompa said:
    When will we address the fact that Apple is losing market share in non-western countries because of Tims political views? 190 countries in the world are not western. The things that Tim fights for, that are branded "good" in the west, do not seem the same in these countries?

    Why can't Tim just not shut up about politics? 

    Tim is such a fraud. He spends per year more on R/D than Steve did during 10 years. If you are competent. Have an idea and do not design by focus groups: you do not user R/D. You buy the key technology you need.  What has Tim accomplished? 8 years and we have 1 new product Apple Watch.  The first 100% Tim supervised iPhone design (X) see a decline in sales by 30%. 

    Tim misleads the market by services label. Services that is the one thing Apple can't do better than most others. Icloud have always sucked. Subscribers are icloud + music subscribers. So Apple has 100 million + people that subscribe to some disk space on Amazon web services. Whoopie-doo.  The majority of revenue in services is Apps/Movies/music on iTunes. This is tied to sold iOS devices. That has dropped by 30%. 

    The saving grace for Apple is the oligopoly that exists in high-end phones. When Apple raised prices 30%, both Google and Sammy followed. Today its "normal" that phone cost 1000 dollar +. 

    Tim needs to go. He is worthless. Apple has spent 30+ billion dollars on Project Titan with 0 products. Apple could have bought Tesla for that money. Even today Tesla is valued to 50 billion. History should repeat itself. Apple buys Tesla and replaces Tim with Musk. The playhouse that Apple is today with Tim needs to stop.  (and this is the sad thing with age. People that are in early 20is do not understand this. Apple before Tim had quality products that worked and didn't break. Every single device before Intel works still today. Every single device I bought last 5 years have died within 2 years. That is normal today. All because Tim likes to buy companies with handsome men. (and thats is a fact. Look at Beats and so on) 

    heck. Maybe even split Apple in a phone/services part and IT part. Let Tim play with his encrypted devices so he can hide his surfing history/the strange pictures he allegedly has. 
    Yeah...maybe they should hire someone else to run the company better. Most profit ever. Significantly more revenue than under Steve, but haters are never satisfied. 
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