By Thaler
Apple’s iPhone shipments plunged nearly 10% in the first three months of the year – the company’s largest slump since the pandemic – and was overtaken by Samsung as the world’s No.1 phone maker, according to the latest data from research firm IDC showed.
Apple, which had leapfrogged Samsung last quarter, shipped 50.1 million iPhones in the first three months of 2024 – a 9.6% year-over-year drop, IDC reported Sunday.
Samsung, which makes the Android-based Galaxy, delivered 60.1 million smartphones in the first quarter – 0.7% less than the year-ago period. Nevertheless, the South Korean company now has a 20.8% market share of all smartphone sales, topping Apple’s 17.3% share.
Representatives for Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment.
“The smartphone market is emerging from the turbulence of the last two years both stronger and changed,” Nabila Popal, research director at IDC, told Bloomberg.
“While Apple has been super resilient and seen a lot of growth in shipments and share over the last few years, it will be a challenge for it to maintain the pace of growth and the peak share it saw in 2023. As the market recovers further in 2024, IDC expects Android to grow much faster than Apple.”
The Cupertino, Calif.-based Big Tech firm has struggled to sustain sales in China since the debut of its latest model, the iPhone 15 series, in September. Apple’s smartphone shipments in China shrank 2.1% in the final quarter of 2023 from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% overall in the first quarter, a positive turnaround from last year when retailers were plagued with mounting piles of unsold inventory. A total of 289.4 million units were sent in the latest period.
Xiaomi Corp. and Huawei Technologies, both based in China, have also recently seen a resurgence in their respective smartphones business.
Xiaomi landed behind Apple among the top five smartphone manufactures in the first quarter. The firm delivered 40.8 million units – a more than 33% year-over-year jump.
Apple’s drop underscores the challenges facing the US firm in its third biggest market, as some Chinese companies and government agencies limit employees’ use of Apple devices, a measure that mirrors US government restrictions on Chinese apps on security grounds.
Smartphone shipments are a closely watched metric, particularly for Apple, because they make up the lion’s share of the Tim Cook-led company’s sales.
Per Apple’s most recent earnings report, it sold $69.7 billion worth of iPhones in the last quarter of 2023 ended Dec. 31. For reference, services sales came in as the second-highest revenue driver in the period, raking in $23.1 billion.
Apple in June is set to hold its Worldwide Developers Conference, where it will highlight updates to the software powering iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices.
Investors are closely watching for updates on artificial intelligence development at Apple, which has so far spoken little about incorporating artificial intelligence technology into its devices.
The company earlier this year lost the crown as the world’s most valuable company to Microsoft.
Now, losing its market dominance in the key Chinese market adds to a list of woes Apple has experienced so far this year.
In February, Apple announced that it was abandoning its decade-long effort to build an electric car in favor of ramping up efforts on its generative AI projects.
Dubbed “Project Titan,” the initiative was plagued from its onset in 2014, including when it had trouble navigating streets – frequently bumping into curbs, veering out of lanes and into the middle of intersections and even nearly hitting a jogger – during a test drive around Silicon Valley in 2022.
About one month later, Apple reportedly laid off 614 workers.
Though it wasn’t immediately clear which roles were being affected, Apple said when it axed its EV ambitions that the company would wind down the team working on the car, known internally as the Special Projects Group, or SPG.
