Canalys’ new intelligence report on mainland China’s smartphone market reveals that Apple saw 36% Y-o-Y growth in Q3, 2022 while its Android competitors faced a decline between 16% to 27%.
However, the overall smartphone market in China fell by 11% in Q3, 2022 which indicated that the market was still struggling or is in the early stage of economic recovery.
iPhone 14 Pro’s strong demand in China drove up Apple’s sales in Q3, 2022
Previously, Nikkie Asia reported that the situation in China could be moving towards a “prolonged downturn” because of factors like consumers keeping their current smartphones for twice as long as they used to as re-considered purchase of luxury items, market saturation, longer waits between upgrades, and increasingly budget-conscious consumers.
Fortunately for Apple, the innovation in the latest iPhone 14 Pro lineup attracted consumers in China to open their wallets. Canalys Analyst Amber Liu said:
“Apple saw remarkable growth in Mainland China in Q3,” said Canalys Analyst Amber Liu. “Its annual launch is highly anticipated by consumers and channels and strong demand for the iPhone 14 Pro series contributed to Apple’s overall performance.
On the other hand, the standard iPhone 14 models did not perform well and Apple had to introduce promotions to drive up their sales.
However, lackluster demand of the iPhone 14 series sent a strong signal that even Apple is not completely isolated from weak Mainland China consumer demand. Under an onslaught of Android vendor competition, Apple had to concede to adopt aggressive promotions of its entry-level editions and previous generation devices, especially in the RMB5000-6000 (US$700-800) price band.”
The report also speculates that in the fourth quarter of 2022, Apple will continue to perform well because the upcoming e-commerce shopping festival is likely to drive up sales further. In 2021.
Apple is going to announce the earning report for Q4, 2022 on October 27. The new earnings report will cover sales projections from July to September period including the latest flagship products like iPhone 14 series, Apple Watch Ultra , Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch SE (2nd), and AirPods Pro 2.
