Apple Intelligence sales rise, global, Chinese smartphone rivals

Despite the launch of Apple Intelligence, Apple has not seen the same growth in the recovering smartphone market as other players — but that's expected to change in 2025.

Throughout 2024, reports of smartphone shipments worldwide have tended to say that iPhone sales are down because of increased competition from Chinese rivals. Now two reports back that up, with the first also saying that Apple has failed to benefit from strong growth that has helped other vendors.

According to IDC, after two years of steeply declining smartphone sales, 2024 is now predicted to show a growth of 6.2% year over year. Yet the 2024 prediction for iPhones is a growth of just 0.4%.

IDC notes that Apple has had record-breaking performance in India, but that it has faced challenges in the US, Europe and especially China. Separately, Reuters has a report about sales in China that illustrates how strong the local market is there.

It says that overall, sales of non-Chinese smartphones fell 44.25% year over year in October 2024, according to government sponsored research. That research from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) does not break down details, but does say Apple is the largest foreign manufacturer in the market.

CAICT does also back up the claim that the smartphone market is growing again after years of decline. Overall phone sales rose 1.8% year over year to. 29.67 million units in October.

Significantly, Apple Intelligence is not yet available in China — and has only slowly been rolling out in the US since the launch of the iPhone 16 range. Over the period of the research, then, Apple Intelligence has been more hype than anything else, but the hype has not sold iPhones.

"While we continue to believe GenAI [Generative AI such as Apple Intelligence] will revolutionize the user experience in the years to come," said IDC's Nabila Popa, "more investments are needed to increase consumer awareness and introduce a 'must have' feature that will rush consumers to the store and create that super cycle which everyone is waiting for."

What happens next

"For now, we expect GenAI smartphones will take their place in premium flagship devices," continued IDC, "and keep moving down in price tiers to rapidly grow to 70% of the smartphone market by 2028."

This expectation is why IDC believes Apple's fortunes will turn around in 2025. For 2024 when its iPhone grew 0.4%, Android rose 7.6% — but "the tides will turn as iOS is expected to grow."

IDC believes that for 2025, the iPhone will see a 3.1% rise year over year. At the same time, it predicts that Android's growth will be no more than 1.7%.

At present, though, there is no date for when Apple Intelligence will come to China. However, Tim Cook has been in China to discuss partnerships with local firms in order to comply with the country's regulations before launching the feature.