Report: Strong iPhone 11 demand gives Apple's phones double-digit growth in China

Apple in China (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

Bloomberg believes iPhone shipments grew almost 19%.
The data is based on government data and Android shipment numbers.
The release of iPhone 11 is believed to be the cause.

Apple's iPhone saw significant gains in shipment numbers in China, according to a new Bloomberg report.

That report claims an almost-19% increase in shipments, likely thanks to the arrival of iPhone 11 in September.

The iPhone maker's shipments in China grew 18.7% year on year in December to roughly 3.18 million units, according to Bloomberg calculations based on government data on overall and Android device shipments. The increase marked an acceleration from the prior months, which were buoyed by the iPhone 11's release in September. The numbers come from the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, a government think tank.

Apple has already seen strong numbers from China, with demand for iPhone increasing 230% in September alone. The arrival of iPhone 11 was deemed to be the cause then, and that demand appears to have continued through the end of 2019. UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri believed at the time that there were several factors for the strong showing of 2019 iPhones.

Several factors are contributing to strong iPhone demand including a better trade-in program from Apple, a more attractive price-point for the base model, services bundle with hardware, and given the largest mix of phones in the install base (iPhone 7) is three generations old.

Whatever the reasons, Apple's laughing all the way to the bank.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.