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iPhone Sales in China Dropped Significantly in Q1 2024

These news are music to my ears. They have been at least 4 years that Apple has lost not only its appeal but we don’t even care to watch their same old story events. Literally zero stuff to be excited about. They still can’t even properly name their iPad line…. It has become a joke. It’s no coincidence that their foldable iPhone patents are ramping up.
 
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omenatarhuri said:
Was pretty shocked how good a ~300 dollar Samsung is. Great display fine camera etc. Lots of power.

Went that way for kids phone, staying on iPhone myself.
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Samsung is also filled with bloatware and duplicate apps. Onedrive etc. is preinstalled so you have to disable that and more junk apps gets installed from the Samsung app store automagically so you have to uninstall those. Also Samsung's own apps like Bixby, keyboard, browser, Samsung Pay, Samsung store etc are essentially bloatware. Then to update Google Play services you need to update the Play store and most likely you'll have to reboot. Then there's the software updates forcing another reboot. App updates will come from either the Samsung or Google Play store. Software updates are dependent on the carrier and you'll most likely have to change the phone's software region to get timely updates. The phones come with 3 cameras with only 2 being useful and actually okay. Processor is slower and not as efficient so they need to add a bigger battery that takes longer to charge. Esim is a hit or miss and no wireless charging.
 
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Interesting to see that Apple's switching, network and branding moats that protect them from competition in the West (especially the US) appear to be breaking in China. The most interesting to me is the switching moat (whereby once you are in the iOS ecosystem it is such a ball ache to move your cloud files/photos, subscriptions etc to a new ecosystem and possibly have to buy & set up many apps again that it puts most people off moving).
 
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Account25476 said:
128GB storage, 60Hz display, ~3400mAh battery capacity still in 2024, ridiculous software limitations (e.g., Battery Health revamp only for iPhone 15) you can squeeze costumers for 3-4 years but then they eventually start questioning these specs, people are not stupid.
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For your credentials, not understanding that the drop in sales is political would seem to require a more thoughtful look at the situation.

Apple’s sales are down because the Chinese Government wants them to be down. It is called trade retaliation. No amount of RAM will solve that
 
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jayducharme said:
Wow. Almost 20%. That’s huge. Apple’s been touting how the Chinese market loves big phones. Maybe that’s why the next iPhones are larger.
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It will be interesting to see how Apple react next year (this years' phones are likely too far down the road to be changed that much now). Over the last 7-8 years the approach to decline sales has been to increase the ASP (price rises & discontinuing cheaper units) and only disclose revenue numbers rather than unit sales. I suspect we are very close to the point where further significant price rises will push unit sales off a cliff...
 
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Hopefully Smarter said:
For your credentials, not understanding that the drop in sales is political would seem to require a more thoughtful look at the situation.

Apple’s sales are down because the Chinese Government wants them to be down. It is called trade retaliation. No amount of RAM will solve that
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I think that it's probably caused by more than the political differences with China although I think that the political differences is a major cause.

I wonder how China will respond to Apple when the US Tik Tok ban goes through ?
 
ducknalddon said:
There are two problems for Apple in China at the moment. First the Chinese economy is stuttering due to the property crisis. The second is the difficult political situation with the US.
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#2 probably never changes, so if that's actually a cause, this problem is probably forever.

#1 is an always/never catalyst: that is, to some perspective, all economies are always stuttering or always roaring for <supporting reasons>. Is the American economy stuttering or roaring? It's easy to support either case with logical-sounding reasoning.

Like #1, #2 is also an eye of the beholder interpretation. One could make that case either way too, depending on which supporting details they opt to gather. Reality is probably something different and broader than simple cause:effect. Visit a financial site today and the headline cause for markets being up or down is commonly shared:

  • "Inflation report behind market plunge of 400 pts today"
  • "Markets are at all-time highs on passage or aid bill"
  • "Markets recoil on new climate control report"
  • "Market up 400 points after rescuing a cat from a tree"
Then tomorrow the market makes the opposite move.
  • Did we solve yesterday's inflation problem in 24 hours?
  • Did we revoke the aid bill 24 hours after passing?
  • Did we fix the climate in 24 hours?
  • Is the cat back up the tree again?
Nope. We misdiagnosed (or more accurately- far oversimplified) the cause of yesterdays plunge or gain. It's rarely a very simple cause:effect. Else, if it is any one thing- like stuttering economy- it probably sinks all boats (not just sales of one product) and for a long period of time.
 
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Jeo_cz said:
Don't blame poor hardware changes. Tim hasn't been on some chinese stage for at least a month. Time to go there and widely smile publicly. Hopefully it will help to promote iPhones again for next few days (or hours at least). :)
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It hasn’t helped him at all recently. It seems a decision’s been made at the highest levels of the CCP that they don’t want foreign phones to sell well in country for nationalistic and also security reasons. Time for Tim Cook to push Apple to compete better, yes, but also to look for new markets….
 
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MacRumors said:
Analysts point to Huawei's resurgence as a direct challenge to Apple as the main reason for this, primarily in the premium segment where the two companies compete head-to-head.
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I think it's more that Apple's last phone was an iPhone 12SSS and this year's phone will be an iPhone 12SSSS. In contrast, Chinese phone manufacturers (and not just Huawei) try to change things up and keep things fresh and interesting, while also giving people nice features like huge batteries and really good cameras.

Fortunately for Apple and their sales numbers outside of China, their only real competition in the rest of the world is Samsung, a company that spent the past few years re-releasing the Galaxy S20 with a slightly different lens configuration each year. :p
 
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Wed Apr 24, 2024: Once again Apple transmogrifies the mobile market by introducing an Ultra Premium phone: The iPhone Ultra.

The iPhone Ultra is a rebadged iPhone Pro the best iPhone we've ever made, with all new exclusive emoji, ultra premium colors, mystical message effetcs, seemless AR integration with Vision Pro, and fine woven leather Hermes cases. iPhone Ultra is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone. It's THE most Ultra iPhone we've ever made.

You're going to love it.
 
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spartan1967 said:
And with China's appetite for big phones, it's not Apple's phone selection causing this. Geo-political pressures will only continue to get worse.

Hey Domas, bring back the Mini. We'll help you pick up some of that slack with China's retaliation. ;)
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ducknalddon said:
The same reasons the rest of the world does.

There are two problems for Apple in China at the moment. First the Chinese economy is stuttering due to the property crisis. The second is the difficult political situation with the US.
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wbeasley said:
Didnt the Chinese government not want Apple phones used in government tasks?

And cheaper (good) phones are always going to sell well especially when Cost of Living and Inflation are world wide problems.
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Yes. Pressure from the Chinese government to not buy US tech, coupled with a degraded Chinese economy.

Of course many here will reflexively take a feel-good swing at Apple believing that's the cause.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
#2 probably never changes, so if that's actually a cause, this problem is probably forever.
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say what? #2 is the political situation between China and the US and you say that never changes?! You havent been paying attention. It's never been great, but its getting far worse with Russia cozying up to China and China blatantly being the aggressor towards Taiwan. In a story that highlights the advances of the home grown Huawei, it's remarkable to me this point is left out all together. China's government's recent ban on iPhones is well known.

never changes? are we talking about the same thing?
 
China always excels at copying products, and in doing so often ignores intellectual copyright and produces copies utilising some of the technology it 'finds'.

Same thing has always happened, ranging from solar panels, computers, EV's and even their military hardware.

No doubt before long Elon will see Tesla's market share go off a cliff with China export market flooding the world with goods cheaper than the ones they've effectively copied.

I've amended my phraseology, as it did seem a little harsh, but China is great at copying stuff.
 
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G5isAlive said:
say what? #2 is the political situation between China and the US and you say that never changes?! You havent been paying attention. It's never been great, but its getting far worse with Russia cozying up to China and China blatantly being the aggressor towards Taiwan. In a story that highlights the advances of the home grown Huawei, it's remarkable to me this point is left out all together. China's government's recent ban on iPhones is well known.

never changes? are we talking about the same thing?
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No, I'm saying if we're playing a personal opinion game, one can always find someone to make a case that relations are terrible... or great... and both will likely have what sounds like tangible supporting rationale for their opinions. And that will probably never change.

Same about economies- there or here. There's always someone able to talk about how terrible any economy is and share logical-sounding supporting points... and someone else able to talk how great it is with other logical-sounding supporting points. Show some bankruptcies, interview a few people who are suddenly out of jobs, etc and one might believe an economy is dying. Then, show some new businesses opening and people gushing about the big pop to their local businesses and one might think the economy is improving.

Maybe the Beatles illustrated this well in just 2 lines:
  • Paul: "...it's getting better all the time..."
  • John: "can't get no worse"
The overall point was that we can project or see whatever we want to see as blame or credit for bad or good news... and easily find supporting evidence for whatever we want to believe. The actual cause of <subject> is almost never a simple as any one or two word tag.
 
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