In China, however, only local generative AI companies have gotten approval for their models, and ChatGPT isn’t commercially available. Apple is rumored to partner with local search giant Baidu for its Ernie LLM, just like Samsung does in China, but this would mean that its own AI features will be placed on the back burner there.
In the meantime, Apple is facing growing pressure from local companies like Huawei, which witnessed the whopping 44% increase in shipments in China, compared to Apple’s 6% slump. According to Ivan Lam at Counterpoint Research, Apple’s “iPhone will continue to see erosion in the premium segment by Huawei and other Chinese brands.”