Apple records the second biggest decline in China

Feb 12, 2019 07:26 GMT  ·  By

China is becoming one of Apple’s most difficult markets, and after the company struggled to avoid an iPhone ban due to a recent court ruling, it’s now doing the best it can to boost smartphone sales.

But as per a report from IDC, Apple iPhone sales fell no less than 19.9 percent during the December quarter, with Apple becoming the fourth smartphone brand in China.

The leading company is Huawei, which currently commands no less than 29 percent of the phone market in China thanks to an increase of 23.3 percent in the last quarter. Oppo is the runner-up with 19.6 percent and a 1.5 percent increase, followed by Vivo with 18.8 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.

The Cupertino-based tech firm now has 11.5 percent of the phone business in China due to the 19.9 percent drop, and it continues to stay ahead of Xiaomi, which fell no less than 44.4 percent during the quarter.

Too expensive iPhones

As for the reasons that caused Apple’s collapse, we all know why people stopped buying new iPhones.

The high prices of 2018 iPhones convinced many potential buyers to delay the purchase or look at more affordable options in the Android ecosystem.

In the United States, for example, the iPhone XR, which is the least expensive iPhone launched last year, can be purchased for $749, whereas the iPhone XS starts at $999. The top-of-the-range iPhone XS Max costs $11,449, so the new iPhones are really expensive even for developed countries.

IDC says the high prices of the new iPhones had a major impact on sales of Apple’s smartphones.

"The imbalance between the increasingly severe domestic market environment and Apple's high product unit price has led to the declines of iPhone shipments in Chinese market," the company as quoted as saying by the SCMP.

Apple is reportedly trying to address the price factor with discounts and carrier subsidies, but it remains to be seen how these efforts will reflect in terms of sales of the 2018 iPhone generation.