Six years after losing its crown in China, Apple is once again the smartphone champion in the former Middle Kingdom. According to a study by the firm Counterpoint, in the fourth quarter, the Apple brand saw its market share for phones jump to 23% over the period and dethrone the Chinese group Vivo. A huge jump since, a year earlier, with a market share of 16%, the American group was in fourth position, behind Chinese operators, including Huawei then leader (23%).
“Apple’s extraordinary performance is linked to a mixture of pricing strategy and a move upmarket by Huawei”, which built its success by initially offering products at affordable prices, notes the analyst from Counterpoint, Mengmen Zhang.
“The new iPhone 13 carried this success, due to a relatively low price in China when it was released” in September, specifies Mengmeng Zhang, adding that the decline of Huawei is linked to “American sanctions”. Penalized by these sanctions, Huawei announced in December a turnover for 2021 down by almost a third over one year, to 634 billion yuan (87.4 billion euros).
Huawei had found itself in the crosshairs of the former administration of Donald Trump, who accused it, without however providing evidence, of potential espionage for the benefit of Beijing. The Chinese group has been blacklisted by Washington since 2019 to prevent it from acquiring American technologies, essential for its products. L
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FINE IN THE NETHERLANDS
The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) on Monday imposed an initial fine of five million euros on Apple, which could increase to up to 50 million euros, for the payment terms imposed on application providers of meet in the App store. The regulator believes that dating application providers should be able to use other payment systems in addition to Apple’s system in the App Store, its essential platform for downloading applications on its smartphones and tablets. The ACM last month demanded that Apple change the payment terms for providers of dating apps on the App Store, calling them “unreasonable”. A Dutch judge had given Apple until January 15 to make the changes. The Apple brand submitted a statement to the ACM last week, saying the company had made the necessary adjustments. But according to the ACM, “Apple hasn’t adjusted its terms so dating app providers still can’t use other payment systems.” If the Apple brand does not act in accordance with the charge, it will be fined €5 million each week, up to a maximum of €50 million, the ACM warned.
(With AFP)
