China iPhone sales sluggish

Apple’s latest iPhone generation is having a tough time in the world’s biggest smartphone market, where its most recent weekly sales were down by a third compared with last year, according to Jefferies, reports Bloomberg.

China sales of the four iPhone 14 models over their first 38 days on the market are down by 28% compared to the iPhone 13 family of products, with the most recent data showing that deteriorating to 33%, according to a note Friday by analysts led by Edison Lee. The pricier Pro variants, which had proven more resilient this year, also lost steam.

The global smartphone market, and China especially, has been among the most heavily hit by this year’s decline in consumer spending. Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest maker of phones, displays and memory, called out falling handset sales in China as a drag on its components business. The country is also posing potential challenges for Apple on the supply side, where the key iPhone assembly plant in Zhengzhou was this week put under an abrupt COVID-19 lockdown.