Proactive Investors - Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC) iPhones experienced a sharp drop in demand in China during the first quarter of 2023 as it struggles to compete with domestic rival Huawei, new research revealed.
Sales of Apple’s mobiles dropped 19.1% in the first three months of 2023, a report from Counterpoint Research highlighted.
Conversely, Huawei saw sales of its smartphones surge 69.7% in the same period, largely driven by the launch of its Mate 60 model, which boasts 5G connectivity and a new chip.
Huawei’s resurgence comes half a decade after the US government began implementing sanctions which stopped it from accessing technology from the likes of Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and TSMC.
It led to the Shenzhen-based company falling from the world’s largest vendor of smartphones to the sixth largest in the space of a few years.
Now the group is ranked the fourth-largest smartphone maker in China and is closing in on third-placed Apple.
Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL) held flat in premarket trading but remain down more than 10% in 2023.
Apple’s sales were subdued during the quarter as Huawei’s comeback has directly impacted Apple in the premium segment,” said Ivan Lam, analyst at Counterpoint Research.
Lam noted how replacement demand for Apple iPhones had also been “slightly subdued” at the start of 2024.