In the last few years, the iPhone has faced significant challenges, but the recent update in artificial intelligence may signal a promising future for Apple. With the iPhone 16 standing out as the best-selling smartphone in 2024, the brand is experiencing a decrease in sales, especially in the vast Chinese market where competition has been intensifying.
Despite global success, Apple has seen a decline in sales in China, driven by the resurgence of Huawei, which recovered from US sanctions, and the remarkable performance of companies like Vivo. With the impact of the lack of advanced AI features on their devices, Apple has lost ground to the competition, evident when the company fell to the third position in smartphone sales rankings in China, with a 17% decline in shipments, according to Canalys.
Faced with this scenario, Apple has decided to join forces with Alibaba to offer AI features in iPhones sold in China. This collaboration, announced by Alibaba’s chairman, Joe Tsai, during the World Government Summit in Dubai, aims to regain lost market share and address challenges posed by local rivals.
Initially, Apple considered Baidu as its AI partner, but the company did not meet the required standards. The tech giant then explored collaborations with Tencent, ByteDance, and DeepSeek before ultimately choosing Alibaba. The integration of Alibaba’s AI models promises to enhance the iPhone experience by utilizing large amounts of user data collected from the company’s e-commerce and payment platforms.
With increasing competition in the AI sector in China, where Baidu announced that its chatbot, Ernie Bot, will be available for free in April, Apple aims to reverse its trajectory and bring innovations that place them back on top. This partnership with Alibaba could be crucial in restoring Apple’s position in the competitive Chinese smartphone market, especially amid the growing demand for AI-powered services.
We look forward to the new features this collaboration will bring and the impact it will have on the smartphone market.
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