China Smartphone Market Report 2024
According to the latest report on weekly smartphone sales in China by Counterpoint Research, there was a 7% year-on-year decline in overall smartphone sales in the first six weeks of 2024. Many smartphone manufacturers experienced double-digit decreases, leading to significant changes in the market rankings.
Looking at the sales report, only Huawei and Honor among the top 6 smartphone manufacturers in China achieved year-on-year growth. Huawei stood out with a remarkable 64% growth rate, while Honor achieved a 2% growth. Analysts attribute Huawei’s significant growth mainly to the strong demand for the Mate 60 series.
On the other hand, smartphone manufacturers including Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo all experienced varying degrees of shipment declines. OPPO and Apple performed the worst, with OPPO showing a 29% year-on-year decrease compared to the same period last year, while Apple’s decrease was 24%.
Apple’s poor performance can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, the high-end market faces fierce competition from Huawei, while aggressive pricing strategies by OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi significantly impact the iPhone 15 series.
vivo saw a 15% year-on-year decrease in shipments compared to last year, while Xiaomi saw a 7% decrease. Given these results, their performance appears relatively better when compared to OPPO and Apple.
In terms of shipment rankings, last year’s order was vivo, Apple, OPPO, Honor, Xiaomi, Huawei. This year, the order based on shipments is vivo, Huawei, Honor, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO. Except for vivo and Xiaomi retaining their positions, all other manufacturers have changed places. OPPO saw the most drastic change, dropping from third place to sixth.
Despite Apple’s underperformance, analysts believe that Apple still has significant room for recovery in the short term. Active promotional activities may help change the current trend of declining shipments. It is worth noting that due to the lack of new product releases, the domestic smartphone market in the first quarter of 2024 may continue to experience a decline in shipments.