Known for treating product launches as variety shows, even selling tickets to such events, Chinese device maker Smartisan cast doubt on Apple's prospects in recently announcing its new R1 smartphone in front of a crowd of about 37,000 people.
Apple is starting to remove apps from the App Store in China that integrate with CallKit, in response to moves by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to enforce cybersecurity regulations.
Toshiba has received approval from the Chinese government to sell a majority stake of its chip unit, in a move that could affect dealings for the NAND flash memory used in iPhones and other Apple devices.
An annual study released by the Reputation Institute on Thursday claims Apple's stature in China in slumping, with the iPhone maker falling behind a number of U.S.-based multinational tech companies and local telecommunications giant Huawei.
The Chinese smartphone market was actually hit harder in the March quarter than a recent report suggested, dropping 21 percent year-over-year to 91 million units, according to a separate analysis.
China's smartphone market suffered its worst decline ever in the March quarter—an 8 percent YoY drop in unit sales—but Apple still managed to achieve 32 percent growth, directly attributed to "strong performance of its iPhone X."
New data from GfK shows that global demand for smartphones declined by 2 percent year over year in the March quarter while Average Selling Prices grew by 21 percent, totally contradicting the media narrative that customers were looking to save money and would shy away from Apple's premium-priced iPhone 8 and iPhone X.
Whether Apple likes it or not, the fate of some national economies is now intrinsically tied to that of the iPhone, the International Monetary Fund said in a report released this month.
Apple could soon find itself caught in the middle of a quickly escalating trade skirmish between the U.S. and China. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday moved forward with plans to limit sales of certain Chinese telecommunications products, a move that leaves America's high-tech industry open to tit-for-tat retaliations.
CEO Tim Cook once envisioned China as Apple's next big market, set to eclipse even the U.S. in revenue. That dream has taken a raincheck in the past two years, with iPhone units down 8 to 11 percent — and Apple is unlikely to bounce back, an analyst suggested in a memo obtained by AppleInsider.
Apple is reportedly planning a second shop in China's Macau, while closer to home the company is preparing to renovate a store on the outskirts of New York City.
A smartphone smuggling ring has been broken up by Chinese customs officials, one where a gang used a fleet of drones to transport approximately 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) worth of refurbished iPhones across the border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen.
Apple CEO Tim Cook made his first public appearance at the China Development Forum on Saturday, offering brief commentary on fears of a pending trade war with China sparked by President Donald Trump's trade tariffs.
Amnesty International is calling on Apple to inform Chinese iCloud users that their data might be at risk of government prying after the company migrated regional accounts to China-based servers, a move designed to conform with local laws.
As a result of outdated calculation methods, Apple's iPhone may be contributing to a skewed view of the U.S. trade deficit with China.
The White House is reportedly mulling tighter restrictions over Chinese investments and imports into the U.S., conditions that could have a negative impact on the multitude of domestic tech companies manufacturing goods in China.
As planned, Apple on Wednesday transferred control of its Chinese iCloud data to a local firm, Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. The move is necessary to comply with local laws, but has drawn criticism for exposing customers to the authoritarian Chinese government.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will be making another trip to China in March to co-chair the China Development Forum, an event where business leaders meet with officials from the country's government, with Cook likely to use the opportunity to improve Apple's relations with the country's leadership and to attract more customers from the region.
For decades, market research firms have been confidently asserting that the "winners" in PCs, tablets, smartphones and other consumer electronics are not firms that are profitable or even sustainable, but merely those shipping the largest volumes at any given time. This has enabled them to crown a successive line of failed players, then rapidly move on to a new "winner," often within the same year. The bigger problem for this sort of flawgic is that the game itself is changing.
In order to conform with Chinese cybersecurity laws, Apple will for the first time move cryptographic iCloud account keys out of the U.S. and into China when it migrates customer data to a local server farm in late February.
{{ summary }}
Roger Fingas
Malcolm Owen
Mikey Campbell
Daniel Eran Dilger
AppleInsider Staff
