Setback for Apple: iPhone sales in China plunge 18% in December qtr

Sales of Apple Inc. iPhones dived 18.2 per cent in China during the December quarter, according to independent research, a major setback for the company in its biggest market after the US.

The company’s flagship handsets, China’s top sellers a year earlier, relinquished the top spot to Huawei Technologies Co., Counterpoint Research found. Apple slipped to third in the world’s largest smartphone arena over the three months, commanding about a sixth of the market. The drop in China drove a global slump of 5 per cent in iPhone sales during the key shopping period.