Apple had a lousy year in the world’s largest smartphone market, surrendering its crown to Vivo
Apple had a lousy year in the world’s largest smartphone market, surrendering its crown to Vivo
[ad_1]
While the best smartphone market research companies in the world Can't seem to agree on a name The biggest global seller last year, Canalys came out today with A new report makes it clear exactly who wins the great Chinese battle of 2024.
This happens to be the world's largest smartphone market as well as the most populous country, so naturally losing the crown to local champion Vivo after winning the regional title in 2023 will be a very bitter pill to swallow. to swallow l Top executives and shareholders of Apple.
Apple couldn't even get a silver medal last year
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, as shocking as it may seem, both Vivo and Huawei seem to have managed to unseat the Cupertino-based tech giant in Chinese smartphone shipments in 2024 after finishing second and sixth (!) respectively. The previous year.
Although Vivo's achievement is undeniably impressive, Huawei arguably deserves more credit for having pulled itself out of the deepest pits of irrelevance just two years ago to a position where the brand can go for gold in 2025.
Vivo has managed to top the Chinese board in 2024, followed relatively closely by Huawei and Apple.
Huawei's 37 percent lead in annual sales from 33.5 to 46 million units easily exceeds Vivo's strong 11 percent growth between 2023 and 2024 while completely crushing Apple, Oppo and Honor's shrinking numbers. Of the three companies, Apple saw its numbers decline by the largest margin, and if the iPhone's popularity doesn't quickly bounce back in China, both Oppo and Honor have a good chance of taking the bronze this year.
In terms of market share, the platform battle was so close that Apple, Oppo and Honor effectively finished 2024 in a three-way tie, with Vivo and Huawei not far behind either. Interestingly, the “Others” group jumped from a total of 55.3 million unit shipments in 2023 to 61.6 million in 2024, decisively helping the Chinese market grow by 4 percent after two consecutive years of painful declines.
This chart best illustrates the incredibly close battle between the top five sellers.
Granted, this isn't a huge improvement, boosting regional sales from 272.5 to 284.6 million units, but it's certainly better than no improvement at all, and interestingly, it may even outperform the progress achieved this year, which is currently expected to take the market to A little more than that. 290 million units.
The iPhone 16 series didn't exactly sell like hotcakes in the fourth quarter
At first glance, Apple can take little solace from its disappointing full-year Chinese sales results of 13.1 million units in the fourth quarter. But when you consider that iPhones had an 8 percent market share advantage over Honor phones in the last three months of 2023, it's hard to consider the microscopic bezel recorded between October and December 2024 a real victory for Apple.
In fact, both Vivo and Huawei technically tied Apple for market share in Q4 2024, missing out on the crown with shipments of just 200,000 units, highlighting the relatively muted consumer response to iPhone 16 family. Don't get me wrong, this was still a decent box office by normal industry standards, but compared to the box office take iPhone 15 The chain a year ago, was performing rather poorly, facing some stiff competition from ever-better "domestic flagships."
This is a very small win for Apple, and it certainly doesn't make up for the company's overall loss in 2024 in China.
Interestingly, Huawei was not the best performer in the quarter, handing the honor to Xiaomi, which however was unable to break into the top five vendor group for the year despite notching four consecutive quarters of market share growth. Market in 2024.
In terms of overall growth drivers in the industry, Canalys researchers cited “AI innovations,” increasingly premium designs, “strong durability” of affordable products, and “breakthroughs” in the foldable form factor in the company’s latest report... without going into detail. the details. The impact and importance of each of these individual aspects. What is clear is that Apple's first foldable iPhone can't come soon enough, and the same goes for the budget-friendly model iPhone SE 4, also known as iPhone 16e.
A mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, Adrian has been a dynamic presence in tech journalism, having contributed to Android Authority, Digital Trends and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His experience spans across different platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenting and his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him active. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has resulted in an eclectic range of devices, which he has saved from personal bankruptcy through his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
While the best smartphone market research companies in the world Can’t seem to agree on a name The biggest global seller last year, Canalys came out today with A new report makes it clear exactly who wins the great Chinese battle of 2024.
This happens to be the world’s largest smartphone market as well as the most populous country, so naturally losing the crown to local champion Vivo after winning the regional title in 2023 will be a very bitter pill to swallow. to swallow l Top executives and shareholders of Apple.
Apple couldn’t even get a silver medal last year
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, as shocking as it may seem, both Vivo and Huawei seem to have managed to unseat the Cupertino-based tech giant in Chinese smartphone shipments in 2024 after finishing second and sixth (!) respectively. The previous year.
Although Vivo’s achievement is undeniably impressive, Huawei arguably deserves more credit for having pulled itself out of the deepest pits of irrelevance just two years ago to a position where the brand can go for gold in 2025.
Vivo has managed to top the Chinese board in 2024, followed relatively closely by Huawei and Apple.
Huawei’s 37 percent lead in annual sales from 33.5 to 46 million units easily exceeds Vivo’s strong 11 percent growth between 2023 and 2024 while completely crushing Apple, Oppo and Honor’s shrinking numbers. Of the three companies, Apple saw its numbers decline by the largest margin, and if the iPhone’s popularity doesn’t quickly bounce back in China, both Oppo and Honor have a good chance of taking the bronze this year.
In terms of market share, the platform battle was so close that Apple, Oppo and Honor effectively finished 2024 in a three-way tie, with Vivo and Huawei not far behind either. Interestingly, the “Others” group jumped from a total of 55.3 million unit shipments in 2023 to 61.6 million in 2024, decisively helping the Chinese market grow by 4 percent after two consecutive years of painful declines.
This chart best illustrates the incredibly close battle between the top five sellers.
Granted, this isn’t a huge improvement, boosting regional sales from 272.5 to 284.6 million units, but it’s certainly better than no improvement at all, and interestingly, it may even outperform the progress achieved this year, which is currently expected to take the market to A little more than that. 290 million units.
The iPhone 16 series didn’t exactly sell like hotcakes in the fourth quarter
At first glance, Apple can take little solace from its disappointing full-year Chinese sales results of 13.1 million units in the fourth quarter. But when you consider that iPhones had an 8 percent market share advantage over Honor phones in the last three months of 2023, it’s hard to consider the microscopic bezel recorded between October and December 2024 a real victory for Apple.
In fact, both Vivo and Huawei technically tied Apple for market share in Q4 2024, missing out on the crown with shipments of just 200,000 units, highlighting the relatively muted consumer response to iPhone 16 family. Don’t get me wrong, this was still a decent box office by normal industry standards, but compared to the box office take iPhone 15 The chain a year ago, was performing rather poorly, facing some stiff competition from ever-better “domestic flagships.”
This is a very small win for Apple, and it certainly doesn’t make up for the company’s overall loss in 2024 in China.
Interestingly, Huawei was not the best performer in the quarter, handing the honor to Xiaomi, which however was unable to break into the top five vendor group for the year despite notching four consecutive quarters of market share growth. Market in 2024.
In terms of overall growth drivers in the industry, Canalys researchers cited “AI innovations,” increasingly premium designs, “strong durability” of affordable products, and “breakthroughs” in the foldable form factor in the company’s latest report… without going into detail. the details. The impact and importance of each of these individual aspects. What is clear is that Apple’s first foldable iPhone can’t come soon enough, and the same goes for the budget-friendly model iPhone SE 4, also known as iPhone 16e.
A mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, Adrian has been a dynamic presence in tech journalism, having contributed to Android Authority, Digital Trends and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His experience spans across different platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenting and his work, Adrian’s passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him active. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has resulted in an eclectic range of devices, which he has saved from personal bankruptcy through his preference for ‘adequate’ over ‘overpriced’.
