Is Apple Losing China? iPhone Sales Tumble, Xiaomi Closes In

Sales of Apple’s iPhone in China took a hit at the end of 2024, seeing a reduction in sales that put it in a neck-and-neck race for second place with China’s own Xiaomi.

While the iPhone 16 lineup has faced an uphill climb since its debut, Apple had hoped holiday shopping would boost its sales in the country. Unfortunately, those hopes have been dashed.

Counterpoint has analyzed the Chinese smartphone market and says its numbers show Apple’s sales slowing during the fourth quarter of 2024. A year-on-year market share comparison shows Apple’s sales fell 18.2% compared to Q4 2023, when it had a 20.2% market share and sat atop the Chinese smartphone market.

Apple’s overall market share for the region shows Apple’s piece of the Chinese smartphone market sits at 17.1%, putting Apple in third place behind Huawei (18.1%) and just behind Xiaomi (17.2%), who both saw sales increases during the quarter. Huawei’s sales showed an impressive 15.5% year-over-sales jump.

The overall China smartphone market declined year-on-year by 3.2%, the only quarter to do so in 2024.

Annual market share figures weren’t much better for the iPhone; Apple held a 17.9% overall share in 2023 but saw that share drop to 15.5% in 2024.

Apple’s 2024 sales decline of 12.6% from 2023’s sales numbers gave it fourth place in the overall market. Vivo leads with 17.8%, with Huawei at 16.3% and Xiaomi at 15.7%.

Analysts expect China’s smartphone market to be limited to single-digit growth in 2025, even though a national smartphone subsidy program announced in January could help increase sales.

Counterpoint doesn’t disclose how it came up with its figures, as Apple doesn’t offer granular details about its sales on a device-by-device basis. While the company does disclose its annual revenue in China, it doesn’t specify how much of that revenue was from iPhone sales.

While the Counterpoint report isn’t the only indication of hard times for the iPhone in China, not every news report from the region is doom and gloom.

An October IDC report said Apple returned to the top five smartphone manufacturers list in China for the third quarter of 2024, showing a minuscule dip of just 0.3% from the same quarter the previous year.

IDC also claimed that the iPhone 16 had seen a 20% jump in sales in China over the previous iPhone model, the iPhone 15, for the same quarter.

On the other side of the coin, single-day sales in November proved to be bad for Apple, as it reportedly saw a double-digit year-on-year decline in sales despite Apple offering an early discount on the new iPhone models.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology announced in January that sales of smartphones from foreign makers have continued to decline. That category of smartphones saw a four-month, year-on-year drop in sales.

While it was expected that Apple Intelligence would boost iPhone sales around the globe, that’s been no help in China, as Apple Intelligence is not yet available in the region. While Apple plans to roll out Apple Intelligence support in the country, Chinese regulations require it to seek assistance from major tech firms in China. The Cupertino company has reportedly had talks with ByteDance and Tencent about their AI models, but no official deals have been announced.