Apple Stock In Spotlight As Chinese Rival Huawei Lowers High-End Smartphone Prices: Retail Loses Sleep Over Valuation

Apple, Inc.’s ($AAPL) rollout of its Apple Intelligence features in its flagship iPhones is widely expected to boost volume growth. However, a recent competitor move in China could hamper Cupertino’s sales performance in this key market.

Huawei, one of Apple’s key smartphone rivals in China, has cut the prices of several of its high-end devices, according to a post on the company’s Weibo account. Reuters earlier reported the news.

As part of JD.com, Inc. ($JD) ’s Super Brand Day promotion, Huawei said its best-selling products are discounted by up to 3,000 yuan ($411) from 8 p.m. local time on Saturday through midnight on Sunday. The discount was allowed for Huawei’s Mate X5 smartphone, Huawei Pocket 2 smartphone, and several phones in the Huawei Mate 70 lineup, announced last month. 

Huawei’s tablets, watches and headphones were also eligible for the discount.

China is a key market for Apple from the perspective of production and sales. The Greater China region, comprising mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, fetched about 16% of Apple’s worldwide sales in the September quarter.

The muted iPhone sales performance seen in recent quarters is in part due to a softer uptake of the hardware product in China.

Analysts hope iPhone sales will see a resurgence in 2025, with Apple Intelligence being made available in the rest of the geographies, including China, over the first half of 2025.

In a recent note, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said he expects a strong holiday season ahead as the iPhone 16 upgrades across its installed base are trending well into Christmas. He expects the company to sell more than 240 million iPhone units in 2025, marking a record, as the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven upgrade cycle takes hold. 

It remains to be seen whether Huawei’s limited-period price-discounting will trigger follow-on actions by the rest of the Chinese players and whether Apple could still finish out the year on a high.

On Stocktwits, sentiment toward Apple has deteriorated from ‘neutral’ a  day ago to ‘bearish’ (38/100), with message volume staying ‘low.’

A watcher of the stock expressed concerns about valuation following the recent run-up.

Another said they would be careful about shorting the stock as it has momentum on its side.

Apple stock has gained over 33% this year.

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