iPhone sales plummet by more than 60% in China during coronavirus outbreak

Apple experienced a major dip in iPhone sales as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. 

Reuters reported Monday that Apple shipped just 494,000 phones in China in February, which is a 61 percent drop compared to the same time last year. The number, which comes from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), looks even worse when you compare it with January 2020, when Apple shipped more than 2 million smartphones.

Android phones also suffered a major drop in sales, with just 5.85 million units shipped, compared to 12.72 million units in February 2019. 

Overall, 6.34 million smartphones were shipped in China in February, a 54.7 percent drop from 14 million last year. Smartphone sales in February in China haven’t been this low since at least 2012, which is when CAICT started publishing smartphone sales data.  

The data, while grim, isn’t particularly surprising; research film Canalys predicted a 50 percent smartphone sales drop in China in early February. 

The drop in sales is a direct result of the outbreak, with Apple branded stores, as well as many third-party retailers, closed in China for the better part of February.

In February, Apple warned that its January revenue guidance was too optimistic due to slowdowns in manufacturing, as well as reduced demand in China. 

Apple’s stock price fell sharply in early Monday trading, together with the stocks of most other major U.S. companies. At writing time, AAPL was trading at $271.60 per share, a 5.71 percent drop since yesterday’s close. 

The coronavirus, which results in the disease COVID-19, has so far killed more than 3,800 and infected more than 108,000 people.