According to a report released by the well-known consumer electronics industry research institution Counterpoint Research on Wednesday, in the global smartphone market in the just-concluded August,$Apple (AAPL.US)$The company, for the first time in three years since August 2021, has been surpassed by Chinese brands,$XIAOMI-W (01810.HK)$falling to the third largest global smartphone brand.

The institution stated that there are two main reasons behind this situation. First, Apple's iPhone has always experienced a seasonal sales downturn before the September new product release. At the same time, although Xiaomi's sales volume in August remained flat compared to the previous month, it was also one of the fastest-growing brands in the first half of 2024, with a year-on-year sales growth rate of 22%. Even though the growth rate in the second half of the year slowed due to the base effect, Counterpoint expects the brand to still achieve a "strong double-digit percentage" growth for the full year.

Regarding Xiaomi's performance "outperforming the large cap," Counterpoint's research director Tarun Pathak interpreted that this year Xiaomi has adopted a more streamlined product strategy, focusing on creating a flagship model in every price range, rather than packing multiple devices into a single segment. While entry-level to mid-range devices continue to perform strongly, Xiaomi has also made progress in the high-end market represented by the foldable and Ultra series.

It is also not difficult to see from the above chart that every year, the sales of Apple's iPhone peak after the release of new products in September. It is not difficult to predict that Apple will reclaim the global second position, or even the first, after October. The real issue is that as competition in the high-end smartphone market intensifies, Apple's "hibernation" in new forms (foldable screens, generative AI, etc.) is not a good thing for iPhone sales.

The ambiguous "upgrade wave" for the iPhone.

Because the impact of the unknown "Asia Vets" on high-end users is still unknown, the progress of the new iPhone pre-order data that started last Friday is as expected.

Renowned consumer electronics analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's analysis released last weekend showed that the pre-sale situation for the iPhone 16 Pro series of two phones was significantly weaker than the previous generation. The expected pre-sale quantity for the iPhone 16 Pro Max in the first weekend is 17.1 million units, 16% less than the same period for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. On the other hand, due to significant hardware improvements (by Apple's standards), the pre-order data for the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus was significantly better than the previous generation.

As a result, Apple's stock price plunged nearly 3% on Monday, hitting a new low in nearly a month.

According to analyst Guo Mingqi, the key factor behind the lower-than-expected demand for the iPhone 16 Pro series is that 'Apple Asia vets' did not launch in sync with the phone. In addition, the iPhone also faces fierce competition in the Chinese market. Therefore, the launch of AI features, as well as the singles' day sales and promotional activities during the holiday season in Europe and America, will define the sales curve of the iPhone 16 series.

Apple announced at its September event that 'Apple Asia vets' will support English users in the United States in October, and then support localized English in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in December. Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese users will have to wait until next year to have the opportunity to use the true 'Apple AI'.

Of course, there is also a question here: Since 'Apple Asia vets' can't be used until next year, these Pro Max users will face another choice - waiting for the iPhone 17. According to rumors, the iPhone 17 Pro Max will be the first to increase its memory to 12GB (an increase of up to 50%!) and the chip will also be upgraded to Taiwan Semiconductor's 2nm process.

Editor/ping