Apple Sinks From First to Fifth Place in Chinese Smartphone Market

[bodhisattva]

Maybe it's just me, but Apple sales always drop around Q2. Why would people continue to buy the last year's model when September drops are so predictable now? Each year we see the boom in Q3/Q4, Q1 steady, and Q2 drops. It's a cycle when you release new products in Q3 every single year.

 

[GrayFlannel]

Apple also lost the global smartphone crown back to Samsung too.

Analytics company Canalys has released its latest report on China's smartphone market for the first quarter of 2024, and Apple has come off worst among the top five brands jostling for supremacy in Asia's largest economy.

 

[kerr]

Not only phones, but I believe the Huawei car is selling much better than the Apple car in China.

 

[macfacts]

What you call "greed" is Just how business works. Other companies sell che per phone because they wouldn't sell otherwise, not because they're less greed. The market has no human-like soul. Never.

So why doesn't apple use their "used car salesman" tricks like provide financing.

 

[Dj64Mk7]

Perhaps the top photo is true to the actual scenario when the it was captured.

I took the photo few years back with iPhone 12PM. It was a cloudy evening but iPhone made the sky blue, those three stars are actually lens flare caused by the street lights on the right. But the photo looks like a Disney movie poster. Does it look like how I saw it? Absolutely not!


View attachment 2372064

I get it now!

If that's what you prefer that's fair, I can't pretend there isn't a reason Samsung, Apple, and Google chose to process images this way -- many people like it.

For me it's not about which one displays detail better, it's about the overall image look and feel. I prefer the true to life rendering of the Xiaomi personally. I put the depth, color, and dynamic range of the camera over the detail and sharpness.

Those attributes you mentioned (depth, color, dynamic range), are those software or hardware things? If Apple wanted, could they allow you, through software, to turn off all the processing and present a photo of what you're actually seeing?

True, but often in a photograph you're looking to capture the mood and what you perceive to be there… it is not a clinical "Oh look at all the detail".

That makes sense. To paraphrase, it's more of an "I was there!" that's desirable, as opposed to "This is the best looking processing pipeline!"?

 

[jb310]

I know some people think the reason is due largely to politics, but I think the real issue is that even in countries like China, the average citizen is having a tough time financially.

Meanwhile, the newest iPhone isn't much different or better than the iPhone from a few years ago. From the perspective of someone living in China, does it make sense to pay so much money for a foreign tech product that's barely improved in the past few years, when you live in a country with a large number of phone manufacturers who aren't resting on their laurels? Apparently their answer is "no." 🤷‍♀️

 

[Blackstick]

I know some people think the reason is due largely to politics, but I think the real issue is that even in countries like China, the average citizen is having a tough time financially.

Meanwhile, the newest iPhone isn't much different or better than the iPhone from a few years ago. From the perspective of someone living in China, does it make sense to pay so much money for a foreign tech product that's barely improved in the past few years, when you live in a country with a large number of phone manufacturers who aren't resting on their laurels? Apparently their answer is "no." 🤷‍♀️

Particularly because in China the phone only serves as a conduit to WeChat. Other than status, the iPhone isn't offering anything over what a cheap-as-chips Droid is. They're certainly not using iMessage or paying for iCloud.

 

[TimB21]

Cyclical. Lets see what the end of 2024 provides.

 

[Jim Lahey]

With little to no changes, same design, extremely high prices, low storage - nothing but pure greed, what's to expect?

You forgot locking trivial software toggles behind a hardware paywall just to spite existing customers with older iPhones and, much worse, not caring that they know you did it.

 

[ghostface147]

Oh well.

 

[james_bang]

The economics and reasoning behind this is not as obvious as it looks.

Chinese economy is collapsing which is reducing disposable income to spend on technology. That forces people back to inland brands because they are much cheaper. Also the government is restricting use of Apple devices in government positions. This is not because Apple are insecure in particular but because the government has no control over the provision of devices. Looking at political allegiances, there is a West vs East divide and they are hedging their bets on retaining control over their population's devices much like Russia did last year. This increases mindshare of devices when there are so many "government" employees in China.

So don't blame Apple, blame failing Chinese economic policy and geopolitical tensions.

Anyway if you go and look at the backers for some of these other companies you will see the Chinese government directly or indirectly involved.

The US is trying to kill Huawei, while Apples is just "reduced" in China. Chinese people know what to do.

 

[Orange Bat]

There are some good points in these comments, including about the poor state of the Chinese economy and the fact that China is pulling away from relations with the west. But I also think that phones have become a bit commoditized in the last few years, also. For any iPhone you can buy a comparably good Android phone at a lesser price. In places like China where Apple isn’t as entrenched that means it’s pretty easy to switch to a different brand. I honestly won’t be surprised to see Apple lose more and more market share everywhere in the coming years as cheaper competitors eat away at their dominance in some demographics and markets. If you’re not completely wrapped up in Apple‘s ecosystem there’s little reason to stick with them today.

 

[bobenhaus]

With little to no changes, same design, extremely high prices, low storage - nothing but pure greed, what's to expect?

I agree.

 

[I7guy]

Interesting to see the projections of the internal cognitive dissonance on this report.

 

[bobenhaus]

We see literally nobody with foldable in public but we lots of them in pawn shops where they will soon be joined by unwanted AI devices like rabbit and Humane AI pin thing.

Nah Apple needs an activist CEO that is woke as well.

 

[I7guy]

Yeah I scoffed at the Leica and Hasselblad partnerships from Xiaomi and Huawei respectively when I first saw them but I've been proven wrong.

Look at Leica's image rendering combined with the 1" sensors from the Xiaomi 14 Ultra vs. the S24 Ultra. It's not even the same stratosphere. The 14 Ultra finally accomplishes what I've been waiting for: smartphone pictures that look like they were taken on a regular camera such as a Fuji point and shoot. An X100VI might still take the edge in raw performance but the versatility of a smartphone balances the scale.

The colors look natural, the shadows are present (no cranking up the HDR which makes everything look horrible), the overall depth and texture of the image is wonderful. This is what I want my photos to look like.

14 Ultra

S24 Ultra. This is what I've come to expect from my iPhone unless I went through the trouble of shooting raw and playing around in Lightroom for ages, even then it wouldn't look as good.

The bottom photo looks overcorrected.

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

Welcome to the world of geopolitics and late-stage capitalism.

This news has no effect on you.

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

Nah Apple needs an activist CEO that is woke as well.

Nah, Apple needs less MAGA commentary.

Your own complaining is the worst form of wokeness.

 

[nt5672]

The incompetence of some Apple managers is astonishing. ****** hardware compared to basically all Chinese brands (60hz displays, seriously? Bad reception in China etc.) Chinese killer apps don’t run smoothly on Apple devices (Try WeChat with Apple Watch, no notifications for calls). I’m sorry to say that the color of iMessages is of no importance to anyone in China and instead of improving iOS, it gets buggier with every iteration. Hard to recommend an iPhone to my Chinese colleagues these days.

It's also really hard to recommend Apple to my US colleagues these days for the same reason.

 

[Plutonius]

It's not the done thing to be seen with an iPhone in China anymore, it's frowned upon in fact & also banned in Government & state run agencies.

Because politics & retaliation for the Huawei furore.

I think that the Chinese government will make it even tougher on Apple after the recent Tin Tok ban.

 

[Plutonius]

I know some people think the reason is due largely to politics, but I think the real issue is that even in countries like China, the average citizen is having a tough time financially.

I somewhat agree but why would someone want to be seen with a phone that the government is actually hostile to.

Also, with what Apple was charging for an iPhone, it's doubtful that the average citizen was buying an iPhone in the first place.

 

[Beautyspin]

Maybe it's just me, but Apple sales always drop around Q2. Why would people continue to buy the last year's model when September drops are so predictable now? Each year we see the boom in Q3/Q4, Q1 steady, and Q2 drops. It's a cycle when you release new products in Q3 every single year.

That is why they have also included a YOY trend and that projects a decline of 24%. Not rosy at all.

 

[Magnusson]

..and there it is, in the horizon. The End.

 

[DocMultimedia]

Jeez. Look at that graph and there is no reason at all to be concerned. Be a MR writer, MR forum regular poster, or WS analyst and the world has collapsed.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

Didn't the chinese government ban iphone purchases for their employees and state backed companies? Simple explanation.