The Apple smartphone iPhone is facing more intense competition in the Chinese market. In the second quarter of this year, iPhone sales fell out of the top five in China for the first time.
On July 26th, research firm IDC reported that Apple's iPhone shipments in the second quarter decreased by 3.1%, falling out of the top five in the Chinese market sales ranking.
Just the day before, market research firm Canalys also released a report stating that Apple's iPhone shipment ranking dropped to sixth place in the second quarter of this year, with a year-on-year decrease of 2% in market share, accounting for 14%. The top five are Vivo, OPPO, Honor, Huawei, and Xiaomi.
According to Canalys data, as of the quarter ending in June, Apple China's total shipments were 9.7 million units, lower than the 10.4 million units shipped in the same period last year. In contrast, Huawei's smartphone shipments increased by 41% year-on-year to 10.6 million units in this quarter, thanks to the launch of the new Pura 70 series in April.
Meanwhile, the Chinese smartphone market is experiencing three consecutive quarters of growth. According to IDC data, in the second quarter, China's smartphone shipments returned to above 70 million units, an increase of 8.9% to 71.6 million units.
Zhong Xiaolei, a research analyst at Canalys, said: "Domestic manufacturers have demonstrated their market leadership. For the first time in history, the top five rankings of the smartphone market in Chinese Mainland are occupied by domestic brands. Apple is facing growth pressure in the Chinese market and actively focuses on optimizing channel management."
In order to increase sales, Apple has increased its discount efforts in the Chinese market this year to attract consumers. In a promotional event launched in May this year, the price reduction of Apple phones was twice that of the February promotion, and some iPhone models were even reduced by as much as 2300 yuan.
On the other hand, Apple's first hybrid virtual headset device, Vision Pro, has also had poor sales since its launch in the Chinese market at the end of June this year. The First Financial reporter learned from Apple stores that Vision Pro can still be purchased on the go and accepts returns within 14 days.
For the Vision Pro, a major challenge faced by Apple is application development. Compared to the number of applications developed in the first few months after the launch of iPhone and iPad, the number of available applications for Vision Pro is currently very limited.
Apple recently announced that five months after its launch in the United States, the Vision Pro has developed over 2000 applications for the device. In contrast, a few months after the launch of the Apple iPad, there were as many as 20000 applications available to support iPad use.
The overall development trajectory of Vision Pro, which was launched in February this year, is much slower than many people hoped, "said George Jijiashvili, an analyst at Omdia, a market tracking company." The reality is that most developers' time and money will be invested in platforms with billions of users, rather than devices with tens or hundreds of thousands of users
Although Apple believes that Vision Pro will change the way millions of people work and play, analysts predict that this goal will take a long time to achieve. Omdia predicts that Apple will sell approximately 350000 Vision Pro devices this year, increasing to 750000 next year and 1.7 million in 2026. However, this number is far lower than the sales of the iPad after its release, which sold nearly 20 million units in its first year on the market.
According to IDC estimates, Apple shipped less than 100000 Vision Pro units in the first quarter, which is less than half of the sales of its competitor Meta Quest headset. However, due to the high price of Vision Pro, it accounts for over 50% of the entire VR headset market in terms of sales revenue. IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo analyzed that "regardless of the price, the success of Vision Pro will ultimately depend on the available content