SoftBank Shares Slide After Arm Earnings Miss Fuels Tech Stock Sell-Off 
Sam Altman Reaffirms OpenAI’s Long-Term Commitment to NVIDIA Amid Chip Report 
Palantir Stock Jumps After Strong Q4 Earnings Beat and Upbeat 2026 Revenue Forecast 
Baidu Approves $5 Billion Share Buyback and Plans First-Ever Dividend in 2026 
Nvidia Confirms Major OpenAI Investment Amid AI Funding Race 
SoftBank and Intel Partner to Develop Next-Generation Memory Chips for AI Data Centers 
Global PC Makers Eye Chinese Memory Chip Suppliers Amid Ongoing Supply Crunch 
Anthropic Eyes $350 Billion Valuation as AI Funding and Share Sale Accelerate 
Amazon Stock Rebounds After Earnings as $200B Capex Plan Sparks AI Spending Debate 
AMD Shares Slide Despite Earnings Beat as Cautious Revenue Outlook Weighs on Stock 
Google Cloud and Liberty Global Forge Strategic AI Partnership to Transform European Telecom Services 
SpaceX Updates Starlink Privacy Policy to Allow AI Training as xAI Merger Talks and IPO Loom 
Nvidia, ByteDance, and the U.S.-China AI Chip Standoff Over H200 Exports 
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says AI Investment Boom Is Just Beginning as NVDA Shares Surge 
Jensen Huang Urges Taiwan Suppliers to Boost AI Chip Production Amid Surging Demand 
Elon Musk’s Empire: SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI Merger Talks Spark Investor Debate 
Oracle Plans $45–$50 Billion Funding Push in 2026 to Expand Cloud and AI Infrastructure 
The demand for smartphones in China has dropped significantly, which resulted in Apple no longer being on the country’s top 4 best sellers’ list. This is a record low for the industry, with the shipment of units to the country being at its lowest point since 2013. It has also become clear that the nation’s four major manufacturers are now the ruling brands in China.
According to an analysis by the firm Canalys, shipment of smartphones to China dropped by 21 percent at 91 million units. Of the top 10 vendors in the country, 8 suffered disappointments in sales numbers, which included Apple.
It’s worse for some than it is for others, with Samsung seeing only about half its sales numbers in the country compared to the same period of Q1 2017. In contrast, local players Huawei and Xiaomi are seeing growth in sales.
“Huawei (including Honor) managed to grow shipments by a modest 2%, maintaining its lead and consolidating its market share to about 24% by shipping over 21 million smartphones. Second-placed Oppo and third-placed Vivo bore the brunt of the overall decline, with shipments falling by about 10% to 18 million and 15 million respectively. Xiaomi was the only company to buck the trend, growing shipments by 37% to 12 million units, and overtaking Apple to take fourth place,” the report reads.
According to one of the analysts of the firm, Mo Jia, one of the major reasons for the development include the challenges in actually marketing in a place as huge as China.
"The costs of marketing and channel management in a country as big as China are huge, and only vendors that have reached a certain size can cope," Jia said, adding, "While Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi must contend with a shrinking market, they can take comfort from the fact that it will continue to consolidate.”
As CNBC notes, however, the rise of Huawei and Xiaomi are not surprising and has actually been expected for some time. The return to growth in sales is also expected to occur during Q2 of this year.
