Apple sells fewer than 500,000 iPhones in China in February amid coronavirus

Apple sold fewer than half a million iPhones in China in February, government data showed on Monday, as the coronavirus outbreak crippled demand in the world’s largest smartphone market.

China placed curbs on travel and asked residents to avoid public places in late January, just ahead of the Lunar New Year festival, a major gift-giving holiday. Those restrictions stayed largely in place through most of February.

Smartphone brands shipped a total of 6.34 million devices that month, down 54.7 per cent from 14 million in February last year, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

It was also the lowest level for February since at least 2012, when CAICT started publishing data.

Android smartphone brands, which include major players Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi Corp, accounted for most of that drop, as they collectively saw shipments decline from 12.72 million units in February 2019 to 5.85 million, the data showed.

Shipments of Apple’s flagship smartphone slumped to 494,000 units in February, from 1.27 million a year ago. In January, iPhone shipments had held steady at just over 2 million.