There is a sign that news about sluggish sales of the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) iPhone is overstated. Research firm TrendForce said that iPhone production worldwide increased by 57% from the third quarter of last year to the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, iPhone global production reached 80 million units.
TrendForce believes that Apple’s improvement is not over. Regarding future iPhone sales, its experts said, “However, its AI-powered features currently support only limited languages, failing to significantly boost sales. A global rollout of multilingual AI functions in April 2025 is expected to drive renewed demand.” There are rumors about a delay of this release.
The Competition
Losing ground in China?
Apple’s primary rival, Samsung, posted poor numbers when comparing the third quarter of last year to the fourth. Production dropped 11% to 52 million.
There has been deep concern that Apple has lost ground to Chinese manufacturers, which have posted large gains in production for the past two years. Granted, most of these increases are in China sales. However, China is the world’s largest smartphone market by far, with about a billion smartphones in use there.
Based on its most recent quarterly numbers, Apple’s performance has been weak in China. Sales in what it calls Greater China fell to $18.5 billion from $20.8 billion in the year-ago period.
Apple’s largest China competition is Xiaomi. Its production rose only 5% in the fourth quarter compared to the third. Total production was 44.5 million. Production by China’s Oppo dropped 1.1% to 37 million over the same period.
Bloomberg recently reported that “Apple Inc. is preparing one of the most dramatic software overhauls in the company’s history, aiming to transform the interface of the iPhone, iPad and Mac for a new generation of users.” The news service points out this might partially offset Apple’s slow development of AI features for its hardware products.
The jury is still out about whether Apple can release a world-class suit of AI software. In the meantime, iPhone sales are healthy.
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