In February, Apple’s sales of iPhone amounted to fewer than 500,000 units in China, according to Chinese government data released on Monday, as the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak halved demand in the smartphone market as a whole.
Just ahead of the major gift-giving Lunar New Year festival, the Chinese government curbed travel in late January and those restrictions stayed largely in place through most of the month of February. Apple’s branded stores in China were shut for at least two weeks in February as fears over the coronavirus outbreak mounted.
In total, mobile phone brands shipped a total of 6.34 million devices in February, down 54.7% from 14 million in the same month last year, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed (CAICT).
Android brands, which include devices made by Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi, accounted for most of the drop, as they collectively saw shipments decline from 12.72 million units in February 2019 to 5.85 million, the data showed.
Shipments of Apple devices slumped to 494,000, from 1.27 million in February 2019. In January, its shipments had held steady at just over 2 million.
MacDailyNews Take: With this news of Apple’s February iPhone sales in China, along with an obscene amount of coronavirus hysterics amplified by the media/social media echo chamber, get ready for AAPL’s discount sale, just ahead of the multi-year 5G iPhone super cycle, to deepen. Smart investors will take advantage.
MacDailyNews Note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that, from October 1, 2019 – February 29, 2020, there have been:
• 34 million – 49 million cases of seasonal influenza
• 16 million – 23 million influenza medical visits
• 350,000 – 620,000 influenza hospitalizations
• 20,000 – 52,000 influenza deaths
That’s just in the U.S.
Worldwide COVID-19 stats as per Johns Hopkins CSSE:
• 111,354 cases of COVID-19
• 62,375 total recovered
• 3,892 COVID-19 deaths