Global sales of iPhones declined 4% in February

According to UBS analysts, "material softness in the US and China" caused worldwide iPhone sales to fall 4% year over year in February, to 17.4 million devices from 18.1 million.

Bloomberg reported in March that 2.4 million smartphones were shipped by Apple within the nation in February, citing figures from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. This amount is a 33% decrease from the same month in 2023.

Even while the decline is less severe than January's anticipated 5.5 million units, which represents a 39% year-over-year fall, the most current numbers paint a more dire picture than some prior assessments have shown.

For example, early in March, a Counterpoint Research study indicated that China's iPhone sales had dropped by 24% in the first half of the year.

The competitive performance of Samsung's S24 series combined with muted carrier upgrade rates caused a 9% year-over-year fall in iPhone sales in the US in February, according to UBS. For the month, the market share of iPhone sell-through was around 48%, which is about 350 basis points less than it was a year earlier.

The experts' forecast of 51 million sell-in units for the March quarter was not altered.

January and February have historically accounted for about 70% of iPhone sales during the March quarter. For that reason, according to UBS's forecast, "the March quarter is tracking to sell-through of ~54M units, down from ~56M last year."

"We believe current demand trends and channel inventory suggest our 51M iPhone "sell-in" est. is reasonable for the quarter," the UBS team stated, "taking into account ~5M iPhone units last year to restock the channel."

(Sources: investing.com reuters.com, bloomberg.com)