Apple's iPhone topped the smartphone sales chart in China for the first time

Apple's iPhone became the best-selling smartphone series in China last year. The performance is surprisingly strong amid fierce domestic competition and expanding government bans on the US company's technology, Bloomberg reported.
The iPhone surpassed shipments in the fourth quarter and for 2023 as a whole, according to market research firm IDC. The news comes after several analysts, including Jefferies, said iPhone sales fell in the fourth quarter due to waning enthusiasm for the company's latest generation of hardware in the world's biggest smartphone market.
IDC also noted increased competition from domestic players such as a revived Huawei Technologies, but timely discounts and promotions helped cushion the damage for Apple.
The fourth-quarter performance was largely actually a decline that was less than that of competitors, IDC data showed. Apple's 2.2% year-over-year decline was smaller than that of domestic rivals such as Honor Device and vivo (both of which saw double-digit percentage declines), as well as an overall sales decline of 5%.
The year was marked by the lowest volume in China's smartphone market in a decade due to a weak economic recovery and negative consumer sentiment, according to IDC. This was also highlighted by Huawei's comeback with the Mate 60 series, which returned the company to the top 5 manufacturers in China during the holiday quarter with a 36% jump in sales.
"Apple's rise to the top spot for 2023 is a huge success, especially amid renewed competition from Huawei and weaker spending attitudes," said IDC analyst Arthur Gao. "Apple achieved this thanks to timely price promotions in third-party channels, which drove demand," he added.
Apple also emerged as the top smartphone maker for 2023 after iPhone sales fell short of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy smartphones. However, the iPhone 15 series faces challenges in maintaining demand in China, where analysts expect sales to continue to weaken.
Chinese agencies and government-backed companies ordered their employees to stop using iPhones and other foreign devices at work in December. Thus, the country extended bans on such technologies in sensitive sectors. /BGNES