Apple Faces Decline in iPhone Sales Amid Market Challenges

Apple has officially announced a decrease in its iPhone sales, echoing ongoing struggles to establish a compelling need for its Apple Intelligence platform. The tech giant is also finding it challenging to persuade users to upgrade to the latest iPhone model.

During Apple’s first fiscal quarter of 2025, which commenced shortly after the launch of its newest iPhone models, iPhone sales saw a slight decrease of less than 1%, totaling A$111.16 billion.

A significant hurdle for Apple is its performance in China, where the Apple Intelligence platform has not yet been launched due to local regulatory restrictions. Ming-Chi Kuo, a well-known industry analyst, reported that iPhone sales have notably dropped in mainland China. Alarmingly, Kuo foresees that this downward trend in sales may not improve in the near future.

According to Kuo, iPhone shipments in China plummeted by 10-12% year-over-year in December 2024. One potential factor contributing to this decline is the lack of significant hardware advancements in the iPhone 16 compared to earlier models.

The last quarter of 2024 proved to be especially successful for Chinese smartphone manufacturers. "This past quarter was particularly remarkable for the largest Chinese smartphone makers: Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, Huawei, Lenovo, realme, Transsion, TCL, and ZTE. They reached a historic milestone, shipping the highest combined volume ever in a single quarter, which represented 56% of global smartphone shipments in Q4," noted Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for EMEA Client Devices at IDC.

Data from IDC indicates that throughout the entirety of 2024, Apple shipped 232.1 million iPhones, which signifies a year-on-year decline of 0.9%. Samsung followed closely with 223.4 million smartphones shipped, down 1.4% compared to the previous year. In contrast, Xiaomi reported a 15.4% increase with a total of 168.5 million units shipped.

Regarding total revenue for Apple in Q1 FY25, it experienced a modest increase of 4%, reaching $124.3 billion (A$199.91 billion), slightly surpassing analysts’ expectations of $124.1 billion (A$199.59 billion).

The company’s services sector, which encompasses platforms like the App Store and Apple Music, achieved an all-time high revenue of $26.3 billion (A$42.3 billion), marking a 14% increase.

In terms of other product lines, Apple’s Mac line generated sales of $8.99 billion (A$14.46 billion), while revenue from the iPad experienced a robust growth of 15%, totaling $8.09 billion (A$13.01 billion). Additionally, revenue from wearables, home, and accessories reached around $11.8 billion (A$18.98 billion).

Apple, iPhone, Sales