Apple, the only major foreign player in China’s smartphone market, saw its iPhone shipments plummet 33% in February, according to official state data.
The government figures showed foreign brands shipped only about 2.4 million smartphones last month, which was affected by the later timing of the Lunar New Year. Apple accounts for the vast majority of those shipments, as the only overseas player with a meaningful market share. The February decline marks a second consecutive month of lower shipments. In January, the company shipped a total of roughly 5.5 million units, or about 39% fewer handsets than in the prior year, according to China Academy of Information and Communications Technology figures.
“Apple’s retail channels in China are still digesting the shipment from the fourth quarter of 2023, that could explain the drop in recent months,” said Nicole Peng, an analyst at Canalys. “But it’s a sign of a slowing trend for the upcoming months for Apple in China, especially when the Chinese peers are driving very aggressively the AI smartphone messages.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Bloodbath.
WWDC can’t come soon enough. Hopefully, there’ll be enough meaningful AI announcements from Apple (or its partners) at WWDC to start to staunch the bleeding.
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