Record quarter for Apple and Tesla
▶ Chinese market increasingly a mainstay for noted US brands: analysts
Both Apple and Tesla posted record revenues for the fourth quarter of last year, with the credit to a large extent going to their stellar performance in the Chinese market, essentially discouraging any moves in favor of a continuation of the US tech war with China, market observers said, forecasting the Joe Biden administration to weigh business interests over anti- China political ossification.
Apple posted record quarterly revenue of $ 111.4 billion, an increase of 21 percent year- onyear, driven by record sales of iPhones including the iPhone 12 lineup, according to its fiscal disclosure on Wednesday ( US time).
Strong iPhone sales fueled a 57- percent surge in Apple’s net sales in China for its fiscal 2021 first quarter ending on December 26, 2020, according to media reports.
Apple’s surging sales in China have been primarily a result of Huawei’s supply shortage, which left a large “gap market” for the iPhone maker, Xiang Ligang, director- general of the Beijing- based Information Consumption Alliance, told the
Global Times on Thursday.
According to Xiang, Huawei started to face supply difficulties in mid- September last year, and the company is also taking steps to voluntarily limit production to plan for the future. As a result, Apple lost its biggest competitor in the mainland high- end mobile phone market.
The dazzling quarterly results, in part benefiting from the US crackdown on Huawei, might not be sustainable, as the Biden administration is very likely to admit the long- term hazards behind the US bans involving Chinese tech companies. But it’s an undeniable fact that the Chinese market is increasingly a mainstay for notable US brands, analysts said.
In another sign, Tesla recorded its first- ever quarter of more than $ 10 billion in revenues in October- December and its first profitable full year after the bell on Wednesday, underpinned by its strength in the Chinese market.
Tesla’s Model 3 was the bestselling new- energy vehicle ( NEV) in China in 2020, with roughly 138,000 sold, per data from the China Passenger Car Association.
Zhang Yi, CEO of consultancy firm iiMedia Research, said that China has become a “model market” for Tesla, which means Tesla will test a product first in China and then sell it to the whole world based on the reception in China.
“The trend is augmented by the fact that all major markets, except China, are sloping down because of the pandemic,” he told the Global Times.
He said that with US companies achieving great success in China, it is to be expected that Biden’s policies will tilt toward the Chinese market, as he has to take the interests of those companies into consideration.