An iPhone X smartphone is on display at an Apple store in Shanghai in March. Photo: IC

Apple's sales decline in China narrowed in April-June, Apple's financial results showed. The rebound was mainly driven by price cuts, a strategy that only suppressed Apple's symptoms without reversing its sales downturn in China, domestic mobile phone experts told the Global Times. 

Apple's net sales in China went down by 4.1 percent year-on-year to $9.157 billion in April-June quarter ended on June 29, according to Apple's latest financial statement. 

This seems to be an evident improvement compared with Apple's 21.5 percent year-on-year sales decline in the second quarter in China. 

In a quarterly earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed satisfaction with Apple's performance in China, attributing the improvement to the "combined effects of government stimulus, consumer response to trade-in programs, financing offers, and other sales initiatives, and growing engagement with the broader Apple ecosystem." 

Liu Dingding, an independent technology analyst, said that considering the gloomy mobile phone market in the first half of 2019 as consumers waited for the arrival of the 5G era, Apple's figures sent "positive signals" for the brand. 

He said that the change was directly caused by Apple's price-cutting strategy, while positive signals involving China-US trade tensions also helped.

Sun Yanbiao, head of Shenzhen-based research company N1mobile, said that Apple launched a big promotion during this year's June 18 online shopping spree, which gave a strong and direct boost to its iPhone sales.

Sun told the Global Times on Wednesday that this strategy could give Apple a temporary reprieve from its problems in China, but it wouldn't reverse the US brand's fading fortunes in the country, which has seen stunning mobile phone technological growth. 

Apple faced rising pressure in China as Chinese mobile phone makers are doing a lot of technological development, and the US company has been too rigid and slow to innovate. "They don't follow market changes. They just keep to their outdated their pace," Sun said. 

He said that Apple phones had once been synonymous with cutting-edge mobile phone technologies for many customers in China, but now its innovation is lagging behind. 

"Many Chinese customers are not curious about, or interested in knowing what new technologies Apple is using for its new products. Its product updates are too slow," he said. 

Apple's financial statement also showed that its sales for iPhones fell 12 percent year-on-year to about $26 billion in the current quarter, which also means that iPhones represented less than half of Apple's revenues for the first time since 2012. 

Liu said that Apple's app stores could be a strong business growth point for the Chinese market, as many Chinese consumers have developed the habit of virtual payments. 

Cook also noted that Apple's 13 percent growth in Apple Services was driven by strong growth from the app store in China. 

Overall, Apple reported quarterly revenue of $53.8 billion for the third quarter, up by 1 percent year-on-year. 


Newspaper headline: Apple's sales decline narrows in China