Strategy Analytics: Apple Shipped an Estimated 2.5 Million Fewer iPhones in China in 2018 Than in 2017

[Ghost31]

From 36 million to 34 million. Apple doomed

Not that I really care how much apple sells, but I think there’s a spectrum of feelings about their iPhone sales that are somewhere in between “they sell fine” and “they’re doomed”. When a company sells 2 million less of a product, it’s not doomed, but it’s definitely worth noting. It ain’t nothing and it’s definitely showing a trend. If I was a shareholder I wouldn’t be super excited over the company I’ve invested in selling less product

 

[User 6502]

Chinese market likes new designs. They're not as big on the S-cycle.

So apple decided to have two S-cycles…

(iPhone 6, 6s,7, 7s, 8 all have the same design except very minor changes hidden by covers that most people use, iPhone X, Xs Ansa most likely X 2019 share the same design)

 

[ksec]

We will have concrete answer in a few more days when Apple release its results.

I am betting the units are closer to 8M than 10M. Revenue could be ~40% YoY decline.

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

Never thought I'd see "better in design, quality and value" associated with Huwaei. That's one for the ages.

Seriously though, you'd make a killing in stand up comedy.

I take it then that you have practical experience with a flagship Huawei phone.

 

[Vjosullivan]

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[Infinite Vortex]

Apple Shipped an Estimated 2.5 Million Fewer iPhones in China in 2018 Than in 2017

Unless Apple are selling phones to distributors at $US2,000 *each* exactly how does 2.5 million less sales translate to a $5,000,000,000 revenue miss??

And bear in mind that is sales over the year… not Q3/Q4 where the revenue miss occurred.

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

Imagine if Motorola, Cisco, and Qualcomm merged to form one entity. That's similar to Huawei. They have excellent brand awareness and product recognition as a result of their history, diverse areas of R&D, and global business. In terms of technology, Huawei builds their own processor, baseband, WiFi, and power management chips. Only Apple and Huawei are shipping 7nm products. Huawei has about 10 retail stores per city with excellent offline presence.

Imagine if Logitech developed smartphones, personal electronics, and sold only online. That's Xiaomi. It's a brand recognized by younger customers but not mainstream customers. Xiaomi was a hot brand 5 years ago, but Huawei's resources and focus on smartphone R&D made them leap ahead. Xiaomi sold only online so that limited them to certain groups with a high geek factor.

Oppo and Vivo both focused their efforts on offline sales in middle-class cities in China. Hundreds of millions of middle class consumers bought Oppo and Vivo. That generated revenue to invest in R&D. Consequently, Oppo and Vivo were able to leap ahead of Xiaomi and showcase premium phones like Find X and Apex.

The typical rich millennial wants a Huawei phone, period. It's a premium phone with 3 Leica lenses, a large phablet display, and has the latest technologies like Face ID. The hardware features and specs are objectively better than iPhone. Apple is seen as a "not invented here" brand that offers no real advantages. And to boot, there's a trade war going on.

Thanks, dude. Two thumbs up.
[Given your awesome explanation, Apple is lucky to have 8% share.]

 

[cableguy84]

Imagine if Motorola, Cisco, and Qualcomm merged to form one entity. That's similar to Huawei. They have excellent brand awareness and product recognition as a result of their history, diverse areas of R&D, and global business. In terms of technology, Huawei builds their own processor, baseband, WiFi, and power management chips. Only Apple and Huawei are shipping 7nm products. Huawei has about 10 retail stores per city with excellent offline presence.

Imagine if Logitech developed smartphones, personal electronics, and sold only online. That's Xiaomi. It's a brand recognized by younger customers but not mainstream customers. Xiaomi was a hot brand 5 years ago, but Huawei's resources and focus on smartphone R&D made them leap ahead. Xiaomi sold only online so that limited them to certain groups with a high geek factor.

Oppo and Vivo both focused their efforts on offline sales in middle-class cities in China. Hundreds of millions of middle class consumers bought Oppo and Vivo. That generated revenue to invest in R&D. Consequently, Oppo and Vivo were able to leap ahead of Xiaomi and showcase premium phones like Find X and Apex.

The typical rich millennial wants a Huawei phone, period. It's a premium phone with 3 Leica lenses, a large phablet display, and has the latest technologies like Face ID. The hardware features and specs are objectively better than iPhone. Apple is seen as a "not invented here" brand that offers no real advantages. And to boot, there's a trade war going on.

I have been saying for a long time on these forums that Apple’s failure to adapt to a changing market could get them in serious trouble. Look at what happened to Nokia and Blackberry.
Apple isn’t too big to fail.

 

[44267547]

This is Apple's latest thing, in order to keep growing they need China..

Yes and no. Yes, China is the second largest market for Apple, and because their commerce is struggling, it’s obviously directly affecting Apple. Others here are under the notion that Apple will fail because China is facing a stagnant market. If you look at the iPhone XR, it was designed to be in line for the Chinese market, even though the price point could be relatively cheaper, it still offers a lot for a smart phone in a 6 inch form factor, but with the competition in China from other brands, that’s also playing a key role here that Apple is directly facing.

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

Unless Apple are selling phones to distributors at $US2,000 *each* exactly how does 2.5 million less sales translate to a $5,000,000,000 revenue miss??

And bear in mind that is sales over the year… not Q3/Q4 where the revenue miss occurred.

I am sure one of the Apple Team will be on to explain it.

 

[cocoua]

hard to compete when your competitor is selling same hardware at half price, when your main strength is the OS, and in a country where your OS does not matters as you do almost everything trough and app, "wechat" and when your main intention is to update your smartphone every year!
clothes luxury brands are selling you stuff that you can have for generations, so that's how they compete with ZARA or H&M, but tech companies are very very expensive luxuries you can enjoy just, 1 to 4 years (moreover when Apple devices aren't extent of hardware failures...)
most of the people doesn't care about this, they just want, latest hardware ASAP, iPhone user experience could be superior, but in a subtle way, opening a brand new device every year is even better!!

of course USA is an exception, but I can see that trend here in Europe also, as smartphones are used mainly for taking pictures, phone calls, email and chatting, user experience is not same as comparing OSX vs Windows (Heaven and Hell)

 

[Ramchi]

Has nothing to do with trade war but rather competition has just gotten better in design, quality and value. Started in July of 2018 with Huawei taking over #2 from Apple so long before the trade war.

Harsh reality....better offerings at far better price points. Apple will continue to milk their loyal customers by charging even more.

 

[dilbert99]

Lower priced iPhone competitors are improving the phones they make.
Apple raises prices and sales plummet in China while competitor sales rocket.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work why out Apples strategy failed shareholders expectations.

 

[MoreRumors?]

I see sales of Huawei has increased and their Mate series line do look nice. For those who primarily use their phones to take pictures, it was smart of Huawei to work with Leica to work on the camera. As far as the performance of their phones, it's a moot point to discuss comparison it since it's not sold here.

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

I see sales of Huawei has increased and their Mate series line do look nice. For those who primarily use their phones to take pictures, it was smart of Huawei to work with Leica to work on the camera. As far as the performance of their phones, it's a moot point to discuss comparison it since it's not sold here.

It's perfectly valid for people in this forum to discuss comparison of Apple and Huawei as this is an international forum.

 

[LordVic]

Interesting numbers. if I Read these correctly, sounds like Apple was doing quite well in the first 1/2 of the year in China and then dropped off percipitiously.

the Q4 results were a net -4m, but the year was only a net -2. so at some point they looked up and then suddenly shifted.

now the curious thing is that this is just china. What do the numbers look like in some other markets that they reportedly might have had issues in. What about India? I expect US numbers to be great. but what about EU? Japan?

going to be interesting to see if other regions saw the same sudden falloff in sales.

 

[MoreRumors?]

It's perfectly valid for people in this forum to discuss comparison of Apple and Huawei as this is an international forum.

Yes, you're right. To clarify, I meant to say in U.S. market as I would have like to hear feedback from users and Huawei is not sold here.

 

[ftaok]

Interesting numbers. if I Read these correctly, sounds like Apple was doing quite well in the first 1/2 of the year in China and then dropped off percipitiously.

the Q4 results were a net -4m, but the year was only a net -2. so at some point they looked up and then suddenly shifted.

now the curious thing is that this is just china. What do the numbers look like in some other markets that they reportedly might have had issues in. What about India? I expect US numbers to be great. but what about EU? Japan?

going to be interesting to see if other regions saw the same sudden falloff in sales.

While the iPhone numbers for China are not good for Apple, they aren't horrific either. One could interpret this data and come to a conclusion that the reason for Apple's drop in China is more a result of a systemic issue in China rather than an issue with the iPhone. iPhone units were -22% quarterly yoy and -7% annual yoy. The entirety of China was -11% and -11%.

So while the numbers aren't good ... actually, they're kinda bad, they're not devestating.

As for the rest of the world, Apple has stated that over 100% of the Revenue Guidance adjustment was due to China. Apple guided down from $89-93Bil to $84Bil. Could a shortfall of 3 million units of iPhones in China be worth $5Bil in revenues. Probably not as 3 million iPhones at an ASP of $900 is only $2.7Bil. They must have either expected a lot more iPhone sales, or other segments suffered similarly. It's probably a combo of both.

In any event, iPhone probably met/exceeded expectations in every region aside from China.

 

[LordVic]

While the iPhone numbers for China are not good for Apple, they aren't horrific either. One could interpret this data and come to a conclusion that the reason for Apple's drop in China is more a result of a systemic issue in China rather than an issue with the iPhone. iPhone units were -22% quarterly yoy and -7% annual yoy. The entirety of China was -11% and -11%.

So while the numbers aren't good ... actually, they're kinda bad, they're not devestating.

As for the rest of the world, Apple has stated that over 100% of the Revenue Guidance adjustment was due to China. Apple guided down from $89-93Bil to $84Bil. Could a shortfall of 3 million units of iPhones in China be worth $5Bil in revenues. Probably not as 3 million iPhones at an ASP of $900 is only $2.7Bil. They must have either expected a lot more iPhone sales, or other segments suffered similarly. It's probably a combo of both.

In any event, iPhone probably met/exceeded expectations in every region aside from China.

Sorry not trying to make it sound doom and gloom, just provide some analysis. As long as theres profitability, than there's no immediate threat. The question is, will this be a short term drop, or is it the start of a longer term trend?

sales clearly fell fast in the end of 2018 in china.

This is likely PARTLY because of political tensions and trade disputes. not being helped by Canada's arrest of Huawei's CFO at the behest of the US (And subsequent detainment of Canadian officials in China). Putting further tensions between the continents.

The thing is, this is the modern reality. And it seems like Apple's leadership either didn't see it coming, or took an overly optimistic approach that China would be an easier nut to crack than it turned out to be. The question is how does Apple respond?

 

[manu chao]

In other words, Apple increased market share in China from 7.9% in 2017 to 8.4% in 2018.
However as the smart phone market in China dropped by more than 50 million hand set purchases in 2018, Apple sold 2.5 million fewer phones in 2018.
As phones are usually purchased every 2 years, Apple expects to have a strong year in China in 2019.

iPhone sales increased in China in 2018 over the first three quarters (from 22.7 to 23.3 million) but declined by 22% yoy in the last quarter. This contrasts with total phone sales which decreased year over year by about 11% for the full year as well as during the last quarter.

Thus, the first nine months' of iPhone sales might have been buoyed by the novelty of the iPhone X which disappeared from the annual comparison in the last quarter.

 

[ftaok]

Sorry not trying to make it sound doom and gloom, just provide some analysis. As long as theres profitability, than there's no immediate threat. The question is, will this be a short term drop, or is it the start of a longer term trend?

sales clearly fell fast in the end of 2018 in china.

This is likely PARTLY because of political tensions and trade disputes. not being helped by Canada's arrest of Huawei's CFO at the behest of the US (And subsequent detainment of Canadian officials in China). Putting further tensions between the continents.

The thing is, this is the modern reality. And it seems like Apple's leadership either didn't see it coming, or took an overly optimistic approach that China would be an easier nut to crack than it turned out to be. The question is how does Apple respond?

I wasn't saying that you were doom and gloom. I actually agree with your assessment. I was just adding in some flavor.

As for the reasons that China went in the tank, who knows. The anti-US trade tensions probably had some affects, but likely to be a lot less than what the media wants to say. Just looking at the chart, yes, Huawei and Vivo shot up huge, but OPPO and Xiaomi crashed as much as Apple did. I wonder which brands are tracked in Others ... I imagine Samsung makes a huge portion of that, as well as smaller Chinese brands.

I'm thinking that the slowing growth of China's economy is a bigger part of Apple's (and others) miss for the quarter. The slowdown was sudden and caught many off guard.

 

[Pearple]

They didn’t ship one to me, because they were all too big.

 

[ftaok]

They didn’t ship one to me, because they were all too big.

So what did you end up with? I'm not aware of anyone else making a phone that's physically smaller than an iPhone Xs.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

How many Westerner's are buying Huawei phones due to pride? You can bet your bottom dollar that Chinese are not buying Apple (aka American) because of national pride.

I'm Canadian. I don't buy Apple because it's American. I buy it because it's the best choice for me. So many consumers buy what is "good enough" for them, and don't share the same pixel-perfect passion that we Apple fans do. The competition has cast a shadow over Apple, and the gap has become so narrow. If it looks the same, then it's just as good... at least that's what they think. Even my own family (my mom aside) doesn't understand what separates Apple from the rest. Ironically, my older brother used to bash me for thinking Apple was somehow better, and now he's an iPhone owner. Go figure.

How can Apple be the best Choice for You? Sounds a bit strange to me, when there are way better phones cheaper outside?

 

[Peperino]

We will have concrete answer in a few more days when Apple release its results.

I am betting the units are closer to 8M than 10M. Revenue could be ~40% YoY decline.

As much as we would like to know how many units Apple is actually selling, they will not be reporting them.

I wonder why?