Apple’s iPhone 16 launch is clouded in China by uncertainty over when the country might get access to its Apple Intelligence feature, according to analysts, and Chinese rivals are poised to take advantage of it. Hours after Apple is expected to launch its iPhone 16 line-up on September 9, Huawei will have its own event, where it is expected to unveil its ‘tri-fold’ smartphone. Richard Yu, Chairman of Huawei’s Global Business Group, said the company will launch “the most leading, innovative, and disruptive” product at the event scheduled for September 10, China time.
Apple has already been facing mounting pressure in China, one of the company’s most important markets, and recently fell out of the top five vendors by shipments. Its challenges could be exacerbated by uncertainty whether Apple Intelligence will be available on iPhone 16's sold in China. The built-in artificial intelligence (AI) is powered in part by OpenAI’s GPT large language models (LLMs), which cannot be made commercially available in China. “iPhone will continue to see erosion of its market share in the premium segment by Huawei and other Chinese brands,” said Ivan Lam, Senior Analyst at consultancy Counterpoint Research.
Apple saw its sales dip 5.7% in the Chinese market in the second quarter despite an overall 6% sales increase over the period owing to recovering consumer demand, according to Counterpoint data, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Meanwhile there is also uncertainty about the continued availability of the popular WeChat app in Apple's China app store. Apple said recently that it cannot comment on the rumors until Apple and Tencent talk it out. The public’s concerns are understandable given that according to market survey institution QuestMobile, iPhone users number over 200 million in China, while the number of active WeChat users exceeds 1 billion on the Chinese mainland alone. WeChat is a must-have app for most Chinese as it is a convenient service platform. Instead of insisting on its 30% “Apple tax” or other fee it can collect on such a popular app in a nation with a 1.4 billion population, Apple might need to think creatively to make money in other, more sustainable ways so that its users remain loyal, the China Daily reports.
