In context: Apple has discovered extra success in China than most US companies, particularly within the high-end smartphone section the place Cupertino takes virtually half of all gross sales within the nation. Having such a big slice of the world’s greatest cellphone market has lengthy been cited as why Apple usually kotows to China’s authoritarian authorities.
As reported by the South China Morning Submit, Apple grabbed 46% of China’s premium smartphone section (handsets bought over $400) within the second quarter because of sturdy iPhone 13 gross sales, in accordance with Counterpoint Analysis. That is a rise of three% in comparison with the identical interval one yr earlier.
It was even higher information within the ultra-high-end section of smartphones priced $1,000 or greater, which noticed iPhone gross sales enhance 147% year-over-year. It was additionally a wonderful quarter for Samsung, which noticed gross sales soar 133% YoY throughout the identical interval.
“Each [Apple and Samsung] benefited from Huawei’s decline and the shift in buy traits in direction of premium telephones in China,” stated Counterpoint analyst Zhang Mengmeng.
China has lengthy been Apple’s second-largest buyer after the US, and Cupertino depends on its manufacturing trade. Through the escalating commerce struggle between the 2 nations in 2019, when Donald Trump added Huawei to a commerce blacklist and slapped billions of {dollars} price of import tariffs on Chinese language items, there have been issues the Asian nation would retaliate by banning manufacturing of Apple units, a transfer that might have dropped the corporate’s income by 30%.
The size of iPhone gross sales in China, a rustic which, in accordance with Statista, had virtually one billion smartphone customers final yr, is regarded as why Apple usually acquiesces to calls for positioned on it by the federal government. It beforehand eliminated VPNs, protest apps, and information apps from its App Retailer as a result of content material being unlawful in China.
A report from final December claimed CEO Tim Cook dinner signed a secret five-year deal price $275 billion with Chinese language officers in 2016 that may see Cupertino spend money on the nation’s financial and technological growth. In change, Apple’s operations and companies would not face the identical intensive regulatory scrutiny Chinese language businesses usually heap on overseas corporations.
Counterpoint’s report additionally notes that Huawei, as soon as China’s largest smartphone vendor, continues to lose floor in its house nation attributable to US sanctions. The corporate retains dropping cash regardless of diversifying its product portfolio. Huawei’s market share in China has fallen to 11%, pushing it from second to 3rd place. Vivo, in the meantime jumped into the house left by Huawei and moved into second place. Honor was fourth, adopted by Xiaomi and Oppo.