SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 5 May 2024, Sunday |

Volume of Apple sales underperforms Huawei, Xiaomi on China’s Singles Day

According to statistics from Counterpoint Research, Apple (AAPL.O) suffered a drop in smartphone sales during China’s recent Singles Day shopping event, trailing domestic rivals Huawei and Xiaomi, which had significant rises.

During the two weeks of sales from October 30 to November 12, 4% less Apple devices were sold than the previous year, according to a research consultancy released on Thursday. Comparatively, over the same period, the number of units sold by Xiaomi (1810.HK) and Huawei (HWT.UL) increased by 28% and 66%, respectively, year over year.

The increases for Huawei and Xiaomi helped fuel a 5% year-over-year rise in the overall number of Chinese smartphones sold during the promotion period, it said.

The price for Apple’s latest iPhone 15 model starts at 5,999 yuan ($832), while Huawei’s Mate 60 smartphones start from 5,499 yuan ($763). Xiaomi’s latest Mi 14 smartphone is priced from 3,999 yuan ($555).

Huawei and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba (9988.HK) and JD.com (9618.HK) did not release sales figures for the Singles Day festival, having dropped the practice last year, although JD.com said the value of transaction volume of Apple products surpassed 10 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) on its platform during the period.

A Xiaomi spokesperson said the company achieved cumulative gross merchandise value of over 22.4 billion yuan during the shopping extravaganza.

    Source:
  • Reuters