(News Bulletin 247) – According to data from a firm affiliated with the Chinese government, sales of foreign phones, made up mostly of iPhones, increased significantly in April in the country.

After a difficult start to the year in China, in terms of volumes, Apple is getting back on track. The iPhone manufacturer suffered significant declines in smartphone sales in the country in January and February, suffering from competition from China’s Huawei at the high end, before recording slight growth in March.

The trend accelerated significantly in April, with a clear rebound. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a research firm associated with the Chinese government, total sales of foreign smartphones rose 52 percent in April year-on-year to 3.5 million units.

If the firm does not communicate brand by brand, Reuters and Bloomberg point out that Apple smartphones constitute the overwhelming majority of sales of foreign smartphones in China. In other words, Apple’s sales growth in the country was probably very close to that 52% figure in April.

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Signs that multiply

Reuters points out that May sales could also prove robust for Apple, with the apple brand having carried out significant discounts on its Tmall site (an online sales platform owned by Alibaba), with reductions of up to $318 on select models.

At the beginning of May, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts had already noted a renewed interest in Apple smartphones in China. “The iPhone’s declining market share in China may soon stabilize, as our latest survey shows Apple’s return as Chinese consumers’ favorite smartphone brand after being supplanted by Huawei,” they said. writing.

Last week, Wedbush analysts noted encouraging signs for iPhone demand in China, by analyzing data from the group’s supply chain in Asia.

“We believe that after a better than expected March quarter, signs of optimism for iPhone growth are forming in various markets and we now believe that the three months ended June will be the last quarter of negative growth for China and that the turnaround in growth will begin in the quarter that begins in September,” they explained.

A big meeting in two weeks

China in the broad sense (that is, including Taiwan and Hong Kong) represents just under 20% of Apple’s revenue. In the first quarter of 2024, the apple brand’s turnover fell by 8% in this region. But this figure had clearly exceeded analysts’ expectations. According to Bank of America, Apple management also indicated during an analyst conference that revenues from iPhones had increased in mainland China over the same period.

On Wall Street, Apple shares progressed in pre-opening, gaining 1.5% around 3 p.m. This increase should allow the Apple group to resist Nvidia a little (+3% in pre-opening) which continues to have a string of good sessions and is beginning to threaten Apple’s status as the second largest capitalization in the world (2,913 billion dollars against 2,619 billion dollars for Nvidia), behind Microsoft.

Apple will hold its annual developers conference from June 10 to 14. The event will be carefully scrutinized by the market, which is waiting to see the progress made by the Cupertino company in terms of artificial intelligence.

“Let’s be clear: We believe June 10 marks the most important Apple event in a decade for Tim Cook & company,” warns Wedbush. The design office expects that the Apple company will formalize a partnership with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, with the presentation of a chatbot, and that it will “lay the foundations” of an AI-powered App Store.