Apple saw a sharp decrease in iPhone sales across China during this year’s Singles’ Day, the world’s biggest shopping festival, amid stiff competition from mainland smartphone rivals and weak domestic consumption, according to a new report.

The country’s two-week Singles’ Day sales period this year yielded “a double-digit, year-on-year decline in iPhone sales”, as Apple “faced pressure from an abnormally high number” of new flagship smartphone models that domestic competitors launched just before and during the annual shopping extravaganza, according to a report published on Wednesday by Counterpoint Research.

The report did not provide the exact percentage drop or the fewer number of iPhone sales that Counterpoint tracked during the event’s sales period, which ran from October 28 to November 10.

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This year’s Singles’ Day debacle for Apple, which saw iPhone 16 prices slashed as part of online promotions, reflects the continued cutthroat competition in the world’s biggest smartphone market, where major Chinese handset vendors have already launched on-device artificial intelligence (AI) ahead of the US tech giant.

The new iPhone 16 series on display at an Apple Store in Shanghai. Photo: Shutterstock alt=The new iPhone 16 series on display at an Apple Store in Shanghai. Photo: Shutterstock>

Overall, Singles’ Day smartphone sales this year fell 9 per cent compared with last year, as market demand and consumers’ enthusiasm for promotions have been subdued by economic headwinds, according to the Counterpoint report.

Still, Apple’s latest flagship iPhone series has proved popular on the mainland since it hit store shelves in September. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max were the bestselling models during the two-week festival, the report said.

In the same two-week sales period, smartphone sales of Huawei Technologies stood out with an “impressive growth of 7 per cent year on year”, the report said. Counterpoint attributed that performance to “generous price cuts” on Huawei’s Pura 70 series and Mate 60 series, as well as the newly launched Nova 13 series with the 5G Kirin processor.

Sales of Oppo rose 6 per cent from last year’s Singles’ Day festival, while those of Vivo grew 5 per cent.

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By contrast, sales of Xiaomi decreased 6 per cent and those of Huawei spin-off Honor fell 15 per cent.

Pedestrians walk near an advertisement for the Singles’ Day promotion of Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall shopping platform on November 7, 2024. Photo: AP alt=Pedestrians walk near an advertisement for the Singles’ Day promotion of Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall shopping platform on November 7, 2024. Photo: AP>

While China’s smartphone market is on track to record its first sales growth in five years, according to Counterpoint, Apple has its work cut out after placing out of the top-five domestic rankings in the third quarter.

Chinese smartphone vendors Vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, Honor and Oppo occupied the top-five domestic rankings, as Apple took the No 6 spot with a 13.5 per cent market share last quarter, a Counterpoint report last month said.

That finding runs counter to an earlier report by research firm IDC, which saw Apple back at the No 2 spot in third-quarter domestic smartphone shipment rankings behind Vivo and ahead of Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor.

As Apple awaits Beijing’s approval to launch its AI services on the mainland, competition in the market is set to intensify as Huawei is expected to launch its new Mate 70 smartphone series this month.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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