China

A Chinese court has agreed to hear a lawsuit against Apple from Beijing Bodyreader, a developer seeking around $420,000 in damages after their children's posture correction app was removed from the App Store in 2020. Bloomberg reports that the case – the first of its kind to be heard in Beijing's intellectual property court – bears similarities to Epic Games' 2021 lawsuit against Apple....

Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams are in China this week to promote Apple's products and initiatives in the region. Throughout their trip, Cook has been active on Weibo. Cook and Williams met students from China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University, exploring how they use iPhones and iPads to improve sustainable agricultural practices. Cook thanked the China Rural...

The seventh-generation iPad mini's charging speed is capped at 20W, according to a Chinese regulatory filing. The new ‌iPad mini‌'s charging speed has seemingly been confirmed through a China Compulsory Certificate (3C) certification report (spotted by 91Mobiles), revealing that the new model has the same charging specification as its immediate predecessor. According to the 3C certification, ...

Apple has opened a new applied research laboratory in Shenzhen, China, marking a significant expansion of its research and development capabilities in the world's largest smartphone market. The facility, which began operations on Thursday, is located in the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong tech cooperation zone. Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Tech Cooperation Zone, China (Photo: Xinhua) Apple...

Apple has approved an update to WeChat for the upcoming iPhone 16, signaling a potential thaw in relations between the tech giant and Tencent, the Chinese company behind the massively popular messaging app. The development, reported by Bloomberg, comes as Tencent and Apple continue negotiations over revenue-sharing agreements for WeChat's mini-games ecosystem. The approval of the WeChat...

Apple is putting pressure on Tencent and ByteDance to make significant changes to two of China's most popular apps in order to remove loopholes that circumvent Apple's typical 30% commission, Bloomberg reports. The loopholes are linked to mini-apps that allow users of Tencent's social-messaging app WeChat and ByteDance's short-video app Douyin to play games, hail taxis, and make online...

For the first time in years, Apple has fallen out of the top five smartphone vendors in China, ranking sixth in the second quarter of 2024. Data from Canalys, a market research firm, shows that Apple's iPhone shipments in China declined by 6.7% year-on-year. This drop has been attributed to fierce competition from domestic brands such as Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, Honor, and Xiaomi. Huawei, in...

Apple is set to open a new applied research lab in Shenzhen, China, focusing on enhancing the quality and reliability of its flagship products (via Shenzhen Daily). The new lab in Shenzhen is expected to boost Apple's research capabilities, focusing on reliability and quality testing for key products. The new facility will focus on testing new materials and production techniques, ensuring...

With iOS 18, Apple is working with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone, where ChatGPT will work alongside Siri to handle requests for AI-generated content. ChatGPT and other similar AI services are not available in China, so Apple needs to find an alternative. Apple is actively looking for a Chinese company to partner with for its AI features in China, reports The Wall Street Journal....

Apple's iPhone sales in China surged by 52% in April, reflecting a significant rebound driven by aggressive price cuts and renewed consumer demand, Bloomberg reports. The surge in shipments from 2.3 million units in April 2023 to 3.5 million units in April 2024, revealed in data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), follows a series of strategic price...

Apple has launched another round of steep discounts on iPhone 15 models in mainland China, in a bid to boost sales in its biggest smartphone market and counter a strong showing by Huawei. The discounts run from May 20 to May 28 and are steeper than the price cuts that Apple introduced in February. For example, on its official store on Alibaba Group's Tmall site, Apple is offering...

Analytics company Canalys has released its latest report on China's smartphone market for the first quarter of 2024, and Apple has come off worst among the top five brands jostling for supremacy in Asia's largest economy. Huawei returned to the top spot after 13 quarters with a 17% market share. The local vendor shipped 11.7 million smartphones, thanks to its popular Mate and nova series,...

iPhone sales in China declined significantly in the first quarter of 2024 as consumers turned to other premium smartphone brands, according to Counterpoint research. During the first quarter of the year, China's smartphone market experienced modest year-over-year growth of 1.5%, marking the second consecutive quarter of growth. This uptick in sales is largely attributed to strong sales...

Apple on late Thursday into Friday removed the popular messaging and social media apps WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and Threads from its App Store in China at the request of the Chinese government, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement shared with several media outlets, Apple said China's national internet regulator ordered the removal of the apps from the App Store in the country...

Refurbished Apple Watch Ultra 2 units are now on sale in China – the first and only country in which the device is available refurbished directly from Apple. The refurbished models are discounted by approximately 15 percent compared to equivalent brand new configurations. Apple tests, inspects, cleans, and repackages all refurbished devices to ensure they are fully functional and in good...

Apple's iPhone shipments decreased by nearly 10% globally in the first quarter of 2024, hit by rapid growth in shipments by rival Chinese vendors, based on data provided by the International Data Corporation (IDC). According to the IDC report, Apple's shipments fell 9.6% to 50.1 million units in the first quarter, down from 55.4 million units in the same quarter the previous year. Apple...

Apple now produces as much as 14% of its iPhones in India, indicating the company's accelerating efforts to diversify beyond China (via Bloomberg). The figure accounts for $14 billion of assembled iPhones in the country, or about 1 in 7 of the company's flagship devices, a doubling of production compared to the last fiscal year. Models assembled in India include the iPhone 12 through to the...

Apple's iPhone shipments in China dropped by 33% in February compared to the same month last year, according to governement figures (via Bloomberg). A report from China's Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that foreign brands shipped around 2.4 million smartphones last month. Given that Apple is the only overseas vendor with a meaningful market share, the company...

Chinese tech giant Tencent has agreed to make some of its most important apps available on Apple's Vision Pro headset ahead of its launch in the country later this year, The Information reports. Tencent is one of the biggest multimedia companies in the world and its apps and services are ubiquitous in China. It owns Weibo, WeChat, QQ, WeBank, Tencent Pictures, and games such as Honor of...

Apple CEO Tim Cook today confirmed that the Vision Pro headset will go on sale in China later this year (via Reuters). Responding to a question from the press at the China Development Forum in Beijing, Cook confirmed that Apple's first spatial computer will launch in the country in 2024. He added that Apple will continue to increase research and development investment in China. Earlier this...