Apple is best known for its innovative flagship phones and focuses on standing out, whether through its features, distinct design, or even when naming its AI capabilities, Apple Intelligence. While the company has worked arduously on being novel, it has drawn criticism from the tech community for its slow-paced approach to launching AI-infused features and to innovate truly.
For instance, Mark Zuckerberg has criticized the Cupertino-based tech giant time after time and, lately, on a podcast, even said the company has failed to make anything great in recent years. Now, the latest market intelligence data reveals that the iPhone is no longer the top-selling phone in China despite making sincere efforts to launch its AI features locally.
iPhone lost the top spot in China, and many believe the struggle to launch AI features as the primary reason
Mark Zuckerberg has been sour for years for Apple's practices and has taken every opportunity to slam and share his views on how the company is performing. His latest comments at a podcast garnered quite the attention, for he not only pointed to the iPhone makers' lack of innovation but also hinted towards flat or declining sales of the smartphone. While the comment seemed to stem from rivalry, a new Canalys report reveals that the iPhone shipments in China have, in fact, gone down by 25 percent YoY in the last quarter of the year.
This means that the iPhone, after being crowned as the best-selling phone in China, has now gone down to the third position, with Oppo and Honor leading with a 15 percent share. In 2023, Apple was leading with a market share of 19 percent. While many owe the growing competition as one of the reasons for the downfall, Financial Times quotes the company's inability to launch Apple Intelligence features as a key factor in leading to these unfortunate circumstances. The report states:
The figures come as the US technology company faces growing pressure from local premium smartphone brands, particularly Huawei, which have benefited from patriotic buying and the ability to roll out artificial intelligence-powered features to their devices. The company’s Apple Intelligence service is not available on the Chinese mainland.
Apple has been working arduously to strike a deal with a local Chinese company to launch its Apple Intelligence features since the process in China is difficult and requires you to work with a local company to launch such capabilities. While we have been hearing about Apple striking a deal locally or being in talks with ByteDance or Tencent to use their AI models, it has not borne fruit, and the struggle seems to be there still.
Since the beginning of the AI frenzy, Apple has stayed away from the ongoing wave and was one of the late adopters of the changing technology. However, when the company did finally jump on the bandwagon, the expectations were high from Apple Intelligence and how the company would not fail to impress in this domain as well. While the tech giant is facing criticism lately for its lack of innovation when it comes to Apple Intelligence features and a snail-paced approach to it, its failure to launch AI features in China has caused the company great harm, and to regain its crown, the company needs to take some radical steps to strike a deal and make its services available locally.
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