New Delhi, Mar 5 (IANS): China’s overall smartphone unit sales dropped 7 per cent (year-over-year) in the first six weeks of 2024, with key vendors like Apple, OPPO and vivo seeing double-digit declines, a new report showed on Tuesday.

As per Counterpoint Research, Apple’s iPhone struggled during the first few weeks of the year for several reasons.

"Primarily, it faced stiff competition at the high end from a resurgent Huawei while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi," said Senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.

"Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," she added.

Apple fell 24 per cent over the period due to stiff competition.

The report also noted that the first six weeks of 2023 saw abnormally high numbers, with significant unit sales being deferred from December 2022 due to production issues, magnifying the negative year-over-year comparison.

Huawei continued to attract and satisfy strong demand for its Mate 60 series, the analyst mentioned.

"Consumer confidence will need to rise to stabilise the market, but it is a tough call right now with everything that is happening, especially in the real estate sector," said Senior Analyst Ivan Lam.

Further, the analyst said that the overall growth is likely to remain in the red during the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 due to muted spending and a few new product launches.