Apple’s smartphone shipments in China rose nearly 40% in May from a yr earlier, extending a rebound seen in April, data from a research firm affiliated with the Chinese government showed Friday.
Shipments of foreign-branded phones in China increased by 1.425 million in May to five.028 million units from 3.603 million a yr earlier, calculations based on the information from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed.
Although the information didn’t explicitly mention Apple, the corporate is the dominant foreign phone maker in China’s smartphone-dominated market.
This means that the rise in foreign-brand phone shipments might be attributed to Apple’s performance.
The jump in Apple’s sales follows a weak performance by the tech giant on this planet’s biggest smartphone market earlier this yr amid strong competition within the high-end smartphone category from local rivals similar to Huawei.
The sales boost also comes after Apple launched an aggressive discounting campaign on its official Tmall site in China in May, offering price cuts of as much as 2,300 yuan ($316.71)on select iPhone models.
Apple’s May sales increase prolonged its growth streak for the past two months, including a 52% jump in April.
This marks a big improvement from the primary two months of 2023, when the corporate experienced a 37% slump in sales.
Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook forecast iPhone sales growth in some markets, including China, after the corporate reported an 8.1% drop in second-quarter revenue from the Greater China region.
The worth reduction in May, double the scale of a reduction it offered in February, comes after Huawei introduced in April its recent series of high-end smartphones, the Pura 70, following the launch of the Mate 60 last August.
Huawei overtook Apple in the primary quarter because the No. 2 smartphone vendor in China and is ramping up its retail strategy by opening more flagship stores and adding more retail distributors.
Huawei spinoff Honor holds the highest spot.
Overall phone sales in China increased by 16.5% to 30.33 million units in May, data from the CAICT showed.
