After a rough early start to 2024 and lots of analyst negativity, Apple has turned the corner. Wall Street mentions are getting brighter, and the tech giant just added the title of top smartphone maker in China to its long list of firsts. The iPhone captured a firm-record 17.3% market share in China last year, according to the International Data Corporation’s quarterly phone tracker report . That’s up from a 16.8% share in 2022. Huawei spin-off Honor came in a close second at 17.1% last year, followed by two other Chinese providers Oppo at 16.7% and Vivo at 16.5%. The top four 2023 market-share holders in China were only separated by less than 1 percentage point, showcasing stiffening competition between Apple and domestic manufacturers. “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 for Apple,” IDC analyst Arthur Guo said Thursday. “Apple achieved this thanks to timely price promotions in its third-party channels, which stimulated demand.” In hopes of keeping that No. 1 spot in China, Apple made the rare move of offering limited-time iPhone 15 discounts there during this month. Last week, IDC crowned Apple as the biggest smartphone maker in the world , dethroning Samsung for the first time ever. Samsung’s Android-based smartphones have been No. 1 since 2010. All of this furthers our belief that iPhone momentum will continue despite a slew of Wall Street warnings at the start of 2024 about waning sales. Barclays analysts, for example, issued a rare sell call on Apple on Jan. 2, citing softening iPhone demand. Apple shares plummeted just over 3.5%. (While we remained bullish on tech, we did trim Apple to right-size the position after last year’s strong rally before the opening bell that day.) After that, there were a slew of other recent downgrades from Piper Sandler and Redburn Atlantic. And, just about two weeks ago, we reported that the Street hadn’t…
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