When China was first hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, it forcibly shut down its borders and placed Wuhan in quarantine. The move paralyzed many businesses not only in China but also to companies with interests in the country. Apple experienced the negative impact of COVID-19 first hand, but a new report claims that the Cupertino tech juggernaut is now enjoying a surge in sales in the region.
Apple suffered in Feb. 2020 in terms of sales figures in China. However, despite the ongoing recovery of the region from the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple sales started to rebound in Mar. 2020. The Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) published data revealing that the Cupertino tech giant has sold around 2.5 million iPhones.
China's overall iPhone shipments increased by 3x as the Asian region started to pick up from the fall out of the deadly pandemic. While the sales achievement for Mar. 2020 is still a fifth lower compared to its sales performance in Mar 2019; it is still better compared to the company's sales in Feb 2020. China shipped around 21 million smartphones for the month of March.
This positive sales performance solves a couple of Apple's issues. One is that there is an increase in foot traffic in Apple stores since the majority of the population regain their freedom, which gives Apple the chance to hope for increased sales. Another is that China has decreased its lockdown restrictions, thereby allowing goods and services in the region to pickup. Because of this, the supply crunch that Apple Stores are currently experiencing in almost all part of the world is slowly easing in China.
In the fourth quarter of last year, the Cupertino tech giant shipped approximately 73 million iPhones worldwide. This is equivalent to around $56 billion in iPhone net sales. The company has an average selling price of $767 per iPhone.
If we multiply it with the shipments Apple had for the months of Feb and Mar in China, the Cupertino tech giant could have earned around $2.3 billion net of sales. If we take a look at the figures, this represents around 17 percent of the company's total net sales for the first quarter of the 2020 fiscal year. In other Apple news, the Cupertino tech giant is expected to launch its entry-level 2020 iPhone SE on Apr. 15, 2020.
Earlier leaks suggested that Apple might retail the 2020 iPhone SE for only $399, which could be very attractive to consumers considering the current global economic situation.
