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Apple’s iPhone shipments fell nearly 10% in the first three months of this year, the company’s biggest drop since the pandemic, and it has been overtaken by Samsung as the world’s No. 1 phone maker, according to the latest data from research firm IDC.
Apple, which overtook Samsung last quarter, shipped 50.1 million iPhones in the first three months of 2024, down 9.6% from a year earlier, IDC reported on Sunday.
Samsung, which makes the Android-based Galaxy, shipped 60.1 million smartphones in the first quarter, down 0.7% from a year earlier. Despite this, the Korean company currently has a 20.8% market share of total smartphone sales, ahead of Apple’s 17.3% share.
Apple representatives did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
“The smartphone market is emerging from the turbulence of the past two years stronger and transformed,” Nabila Popal, research director at IDC, told Bloomberg.
“Apple has been very resilient and has seen significant increases in shipments and share over the past few years, but maintaining the pace of growth and peak share seen in 2023 will be a challenge. As it recovers further, IDC expects Android to grow far faster than Apple in 2024.
The Cupertino, California-based big tech company has struggled to maintain sales in China since the debut of its latest iPhone 15 series in September. Apple’s smartphone shipments in China decreased by 2.1% in the final quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year.
Meanwhile, overall global smartphone shipments rose 7.8% in the first quarter, a turnaround from last year when retailers were plagued by mountains of unsold inventory. A total of 289.4 million units were shipped in the latest period.
China-based Xiaomi Corp. and Huawei Technologies have also recently made a comeback with their respective smartphone businesses.
Xiaomi moved up the ranking after Apple among the top five smartphone manufacturers in the first quarter. The company shipped his 40.8 million units, an increase of over 33% year over year.
Apple’s decline highlights the challenges facing U.S. companies in its third-largest market, as some Chinese companies and government agencies restrict the use of Apple devices by their employees. The move reflects the US government’s restrictions on Chinese apps for security reasons.
Smartphone shipments are a particularly closely watched metric for Apple, as they account for a large portion of Tim Cook’s company’s sales.
According to Apple’s latest financial report, the company sold $69.7 billion worth of iPhones in the final quarter of 2023, ending Dec. 31. For reference, services revenue was the second-highest revenue driver during the period, raking in $23.1 billion.
Apple is scheduled to hold a Worldwide Developers Conference in June that will focus on updating the software that powers the iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices.
Investors have been watching for updates on Apple’s artificial intelligence developments, but the company has so far said little about incorporating artificial intelligence technology into its devices.
The company lost its title as the world’s most valuable company to Microsoft earlier this year.
Now, the loss of market power in the key Chinese market adds to the list of woes Apple has experienced so far this year.
Apple announced in February that it was abandoning a decade-long effort to build electric vehicles in order to focus more on generative AI projects.
Since its inception in 2014, the initiative, dubbed “Project Titan,” has seen vehicles frequently hit curbs, veer out of their lane and into the middle of intersections, or nearly hit joggers during test drives. This was a problem when the roads became difficult to pass. Around Silicon Valley in 2022.
About a month later, Apple reportedly laid off 614 employees.
It wasn’t immediately clear which roles would be affected, but Apple announced it would downsize its car development team, known internally as the Special Projects Group (SPG), as it ends its EV ambitions.
with post wire
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