Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Apple CEO Tim Cook makes a surprise visit to China. During his visit, he took the time to encourage gamers at an event.
Cook’s visit underscores how important the Chinese market is to the iPhone as it faces growing challenges.
Gamers gathered at an Apple store in Chengdu, southwest China, to play “Honor of Kings,” a game developed by TiMi Studio, which is owned by giant Tencent.
“The action-packed Honor of Kings started here in Chengdu and is now a global phenomenon on the App Store,” Cook said in a Weibo post, quoted from CNBC International, Wednesday (18/10/2023).
Cook also posted a video of himself cheering on gamers at the tournament. Honor of Kings is one of China’s biggest mobile games and a big revenue driver for Apple’s App Store in the country.
The Apple CEO’s visit to the company’s third-largest market comes less than a month after the iPhone 15, the company’s latest flagship smartphone, went on sale to a reception that fell short of expectations. At the same time, Huawei is trying to dominate the smartphone market in China again.
Counterpoint Research said in a note that unit sales of the iPhone 15 series during the first 17 days of sales in China fell 4.5% compared to the iPhone 14.
This comes after Chinese tech giant Huawei last month quietly launched smartphones equipped with high-end semiconductors and 5G connectivity, despite US sanctions seeking to stop this.
Huawei was once China’s biggest smartphone maker and Apple’s biggest rival, before US sanctions cut off key technology it needed to compete. This caused Huawei’s position to fall to 6th place in China.
But recently, Jefferies analysts published a report saying Huawei has become the number one smartphone maker in China, overtaking Apple.
“It’s been a rocky start for Apple and a combination of factors is driving this,” said Ethan Qi, associate director at Counterpoint Research.
Qi attributed Apple’s challenges to poor consumer sentiment, the iPhone 15’s poorer performance compared to the iPhone 14, and increased competition in the high-end smartphone market.
“All of these things worked together to take the shine off Apple during the first few weeks of iPhone 15 sales,” Qi said.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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