Sales of Apple iPhones and other foreign-branded handsets in China slipped 12.7% last month, year-on-year, as consumers made increasingly patriotic choices amid ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Calculations based on the data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed that during the month, sales of foreign-branded phones in China fell to 1.87 million handsets, down from 2.142 million a year earlier.
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Overall phone sales in China increased 26.7% from a year earlier to 24.05 million handsets in August, the CAICT data showed.
Last week, it was revealed pre-orders for Huawei’s Mate XT had surpassed 6.5 million – almost double the roughly 3.9 million foldable smartphones shipped worldwide in the second quarter of this year, according to consultancy IDC.
Interest in the Mate XT had led to some versions of the phone going for prices as high as over $20,000.
Meanwhile, Apple’s sales in China have dwindled, even as the firm has offered rare discounts. In the second-quarter of the year, the US phone-maker dropped from third to sixth place in the Chinese market.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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