Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., during the first day of in-store sales of Apple’s latest products at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in New York, U.S., Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.
Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple the stock fell 4% on Thursday, its worst day since August 5, after several reports of weak iPhone sales in China.
The iPhone maker’s share price is down nearly 12% from its most recent peak in December, and is the worst performing of the seven biggest tech stocks so far in 2025.
The weakness followed a report by market research firm Canalys on Thursday that suggested Apple had slipped to third place in terms of smartphone sales in China in 2024, behind domestic makers Viva and Huawei.
Apple shipped 15% of the 284 million phones sold in China last year, according to the report, but that was down 17% year-on-year. Meanwhile, Vivo and Huawei recorded strong growth.
TSMC, a key supplier to Apple, on Thursday reported a forecast for smartphone sales for the first quarter that suggested a decline of nearly 6 percent. TSMC, which makes the chips at the heart of Apple’s devices, attributed the decline to seasonality. TSMC said AI chips accounted for more than half of its revenue in the fourth quarter, displacing smartphones, which were its biggest business.
Well-known Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on Monday wrote that it expects iPhone shipments to decline 6% year over year in the first half of 2025, with most of the decline occurring in the second quarter. Kuo wrote that he believes Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI system not yet available in China, is not driving demand for the iPhone.
“There is no evidence of Apple Intelligence’s ability to benefit hardware replacement cycles or service business,” Kuo wrote.
Apple will announce its December quarter results on January 30.
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