Apple’s iPhone was confirmed as the best-selling smartphone in China last year, for the first time, despite tough competition locally as well as Beijing-led prohibitions on the American tech giant.

As reported by IDC, a global provider of market intelligence in IT and communications, the iPhone topped the bill for the fourth quarter and 2023 overall, following their tracker report. A slump in the fourth quarter last year was attributed to the latest generation of hardware installed in iPhones but that was not enough to prevent the landmark achievement.

It came despite a surge for Huawei but other local competitors also saw dips in sales which proved to be greater than Apple’s. Over the year, the US multinational slumped 2.2% but that was just a fraction compared to Honor and Vivo, who both suffered a double-digit reverse.

Last year was the slowest year for smartphone sales in a decade, attributed to weak consumer demand and economic factors by IDC.

Huawei bucked the trend with a significant spike in sales as its Mate 60 series catapulted the Shenzen-based brand back into prominence with a 36% increase in shipments. It also returned Huawei to the top five manufacturers in China for the fourth quarter.

2024 has seen Apple make the rare move to cut prices of its iPhone 15 models in China by around 5%.

Progress and preventative measures

IDC research analyst Arthur Gao commented in glowing terms on the results for Apple.

“Apple’s climb to the top spot in 2023, especially in light of renewed competition from Huawei and the soft spending sentiment, marks a tremendous success,” he said.

“They achieved this thanks to timely price promotions in its third-party channels, which stimulated demand.”

The breakthrough in China came as government agencies have led a crackdown against devices from outside its domestic market. Staff within those organizations were reportedly ordered to stop bringing iPhones and other foreign devices to work, extending the prohibition across various sensitive sectors, as reported by Bloomberg in December.

Apple’s success in 2023 wasn’t just confined to the Chinese market as it also secured the mantle of the world’s biggest smartphone seller, edging ahead of Samsung as iPhone sales fell less than the Korean firm’s Galaxy brand.

Image: Tuur Tisseghem/Pexels.

Graeme Hanna

Freelance Writer

Graeme Hanna is a full-time, freelance writer with significant experience in online news as well as content writing. Since January 2021, he has contributed as a football and news writer for several mainstream UK titles including The Glasgow Times, Rangers Review, Manchester Evening News, MyLondon, Give Me Sport, and the Belfast News Letter. Graeme has worked across several briefs including news and feature writing in addition to other significant work experience in professional services. Now a contributing news writer at ReadWrite.com, he is involved with pitching relevant content for publication as well as writing engaging tech news stories.

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