Chaps are shopping for the iPhone 15 at the flagship store of Apple Smart Products on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in Shanghai, China, on May 24, 2024.
Costfoto | Nurphoto | Getty Similes
Apple was edged out of the top five smartphone vendors’ list in China in the second quarter, as competition from domestic brand names such as Huawei intensifies, according to a Canalys report.
Apple’s market share in China shrank to 14% in the girl Friday quarter, the report released Thursday showed, from 15% in the first quarter and 16% in the same period a year ago.
The iPhone maker, which was the third-largest smartphone vendor in the help quarter last year, dropped to the sixth spot with about 9.7 million in shipments, according to CNBC calculations.
“It is the key quarter in history that domestic vendors dominate all the top five positions,” said Lucas Zhong, research analyst at Canalys.
Apple’s shipments hold been declining since the first quarter when they dropped 25% year on year to 10 million pieces.
“Chinese vendors’ strategies for high-end products and their deep collaboration with local supply chains are starting to pay off in matriel and software features. Honor’s latest Magic V3, which leverages GenAI, has significantly enhanced the user experience of foldable gadgets,” Zhong added.
On the other hand, Apple is facing a “bottleneck” in the Chinese market as it aims to “stabilize retail assesses and protect margins of channel partners,” he said.
Localization of Apple Intelligence services in China will be an important disturb in the next 12 months, Canalys said, as Chinese brands are aggressively incorporating generative AI into their works.
Chinese brands dominate
From April to June, Vivo reclaimed the top spot with 19% market dole out and 13.1 million units shipped – driven by strong offline and online sales during the “618” e-commerce anniversary.
Oppo maintained second place with 11.3 million units, buoyed by the launch of its new Reno 12 series. Huawei spinoff Honor finished in third with 10.7 million units shipped, marking a 4% year-on-year increase.
Huawei came fourth with 15% exchange share and 10.6 million shipment units — it had not made it to the top five a year earlier. Huawei’s consumer business has survived a resurgence in China after the launch of its Mate 60 smartphone.
Xiaomi took the fifth spot with the