By Dan Strumpf WSJ Tues., Feb. 12, 2019 HONG KONG—iPhone sales in China slumped far more than overall smartphone sales there last quarter, costing Apple Inc. further ground against local rival Huawei Technologies Co. in the world’s biggest smartphone market. Apple’s smartphone shipments to China in the last three months of 2018 were down 20% from a year earlier, according to International Data Corp., putting a finer point on Apple’s shrinking sales in China late last year. Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook blamed declining iPhone sales in China on the economic slowdown there. That slowdown—and a global trend among phone owners of upgrading less frequently—contributed to a 9.7% drop in overall smartphone shipments in China in the quarter. But Huawei’s shipments were up 23%, giving it 29% of the market and cementing its position as the country’s top phone vendor, according to IDC, which reported Huawei also gained at the high end of the market long dominated by the likes of Apple. “The high price point of the iPhone X in 2017 has lengthened the replacement cycle of users, while the new models of 2018 don’t have enough innovations to make users buy,” said Xi Wang, an IDC analyst in China. Huawei, by contrast, has taken technological strides that have made its devices more competitive in photography, gaming and business applications, he said. Though its phones are virtually nonexistent in the U.S., Huawei’s global smartphone sales were up a heady 44% in the fourth quarter, according to IDC, which… [Read full story]
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