Cupertino: As per reports, in the second quarter, Apple has fallen out of the top five smartphone vendors in China, losing ground to domestic brands like Huawei. Apple’s market share in China declined to 14 percent, down from 15 percent in the first quarter and 16 percent in the same period last year.
Notably, previously ranked as the third-largest smartphone vendor in the same quarter last year, Apple slipped to the sixth position with approximately 9.7 million units shipped.
Apple’s shipments have been on a downward trend, dropping by 25 percent year-over-year to 10 million units in the first quarter. Zhong pointed out that Chinese vendors' strategies for high-end products and their extensive collaboration with local supply chains are yielding significant benefits in both hardware and software. He highlighted Honor’s latest Magic V3, which uses GenAI to significantly improve the user experience of foldable devices, as a prime example.
Meanwhile, Apple faces a "bottleneck" in the Chinese market as it tries to "stabilize retail prices and protect margins of channel partners," according to Zhong.
Canalys emphasized that localizing Apple's Intelligence services in China will be a crucial step in the coming 12 months, as Chinese brands are aggressively integrating generative AI into their offerings.