Beijing time, July 29 news, despite the net profit fell 11%, but Apple’s new quarter revenue and profit are barely exceeded market expectations, thanks to the iPhone. In the background of the global economic downturn, Apple’s days are still relatively good.
Among Apple’s five major businesses, cell phones can be considered a standout. Apple’s iPhone revenue in the third quarter was $40.7 billion, up 3 percent from a year earlier, beating the consensus market estimate of $38.3 billion by more than $2 billion. Analysts had expected iPhone revenue to decline 2.5 percent. iPad business fared relatively well, with revenue of $7.2 billion for the quarter, down 2 percent year-over-year, but still better than analysts expected.
In addition to that, Mac, wearable products and services business revenue all fell short of expectations. Apple CEO Tim Cook (Tim Cook) said in a conference call that iPad, Mac and wearable products were all affected by supply constraints.
In the global economic downturn, the outlook for the iPhone appears to remain bright. “Based on our data, there’s no clear evidence that iPhone sales are being impacted by macroeconomic factors,” Cook said. He also expects the company’s revenue growth to accelerate in the fiscal fourth quarter.
In contrast, Apple’s rivals are feeling the pinch. Samsung Electronics, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, on Thursday lowered its forecast for smartphone shipments across the industry. In April, Samsung also expected the smartphone market to grow this year. But now Kim Sung-koo, vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, said the smartphone market shipments will be flat or grow at a minimal rate amid a “shrinking market.
The high-end market without Huawei
With the economy in the doldrums, people will spend less, reduce their spending on cell phones or delay buying them. However, Apple users tend to be more affluent than price-sensitive
Android phone users.
“As global inflation rises, phones in the entry-level and lower price segments are likely to be hit harder.” said researchers at market research firm Counterpoint.
That’s good news for Apple, which is dominating the high-end market, with 62 percent of the “premium phone market” priced at more than $400 in the first quarter of this year, according to Counterpoint, a distant second to Samsung (16 percent).
Apple’s high-end cell phone share exceeds 60%
However, Apple’s further domination of the high-end market also benefits from an objective factor, which is the decline of Huawei. Affected by the U.S. sanctions, Huawei’s cell phone shipments have plummeted. Whether in the global market or the domestic market, Huawei has fallen out of the top five.
Counterpoint partner Neil Shah (Neil Shah) and well-known research firm IDC research manager Will Wong (Will Wong) that Apple is continuing to take advantage of Huawei’s decline in the high-end market. Will Wong previously predicted that Apple may actually achieve positive growth in China’s cell phone market in the second quarter “in the face of Huawei’s decline and the lack of strong high-end competitors.
Neil Mawston, executive director of market research firm Strategy Analytics, also expects Apple’s overall market share in China to grow in 2022 “as its loyal, affluent fans upgrade to new or cheaper 5G phones.
Before suffering its fourth round of sanctions, Huawei also had a 17 percent share of the high-end market in the second quarter of 2020, when Apple was also No. 1, but with less than half the share at 48 percent, according to Counterpoint.
Huawei’s high-end market share once reached 17 percent
But after the U.S. announced the fourth round of sanctions against Huawei in April 2021, Huawei’s high-end cell phone market share plummeted to a single-digit 6 percent in the second quarter of that year, while Apple’s share rose to 57 percent. By the first quarter of 2022, Huawei’s share was down to just 3%, while Apple broke 60%.
Other than Huawei, no other Chinese vendor broke a 5% share of the high-end phone market. In the first quarter of this year, OPPO’s high-end market share was 5%, Xiaomi’s 4%, and Vivo’s 3%.
Xiaomi, OPPO infighting
In the second quarter of this year, China’s smartphone sales fell 14.2 percent year-on-year and 12.6 percent sequentially, less than half of what they were at their peak in the fourth quarter of 2016 and a decade-long low, according to a report from Counterpoint.
IDC’s Will Wang said the main reason for the decline in smartphone shipments in China in the second quarter was “weakening growth momentum in the Android market.” Chinese Android phone makers mainly include Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo.
“Competition in China’s Android phone market remains brutal, with six brands such as Xiaomi competing fiercely for a share of the shrinking Android market,” said Strategy Analytics’ Mauston. Strategy Analytics’ Moston said.
Xiaomi 12
In the second quarter, Vivo, OPPO and Xiaomi all experienced declines in market share in China. vivo ranked first, but its market share fell to 19.8% from 21.1% a year earlier. oPPO was third, with a share of 17.9%, down from 22.0%. Xiaomi was fifth, with a share of 14.9 percent, down from 16.6 percent. In contrast, Apple was fourth, with its share increasing from 14.1% to 15.5%. Another growth was achieved by Honor, whose share grew significantly from 7.7% a year earlier to 18.3%, ranking second.
In the global market, Vivo, OPPO and Xiaomi also did not perform as well as expected. According to the latest report released by IDC, in the second quarter, Xiaomi, Vivo and OPPO ranked three to five in the world, but cell phone shipments fell by more than 20%, of which Xiaomi’s drop of up to 25.5%.
Shipments of three major Chinese manufacturers fell by more than 20%
In contrast, Apple achieved a 0.5 percent increase in global cell phone shipments, placing it in second place. Samsung came in first, with global smartphone growth of 5.6 percent in the second quarter. Overall, global smartphone shipments fell 8.7 percent year-over-year to 286 million units in the quarter due to global economic uncertainty and weak demand.
Nabila Popal, research director of IDC’s global tracking team, noted that soaring inflation and economic uncertainty have severely curbed consumer spending and increased inventories in all regions. OEM handset makers have cut orders for the remainder of the year, with Chinese vendors making the biggest cuts as their home country’s largest market continues to struggle.
