Alibaba confirms that the Apple agreement provides AI features to iphones in China
Alibaba Thursday confirmed recent reports From a partnership with Apple which should provide AI features to the IPHOS sold in China. The agreement is important for Apple, because iPhone sales have dropped in the world’s largest smartphones in the world. The handset experienced a drop of 11% on the other in China, according to Apple Most recent income report.
Apple “spoke to a number of companies in China,” said Alibaba president Joseph Tsai at the Dubai World Government Summit. “In the end, they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to feed their phones. We feel extremely honored to do business with a large company like Apple. »»
According to reports, Apple Previous agreement with Baidu China Was plagued by problems adapting the IA offer of the research giant. Apple would also have explored partnerships with Bytedance and Deepseek, before setting up on Alibaba. These types of partnerships are essential for American companies like Apple because they work for regulatory approval in China. Alibaba and Apple would both have submitted relevant documents to local authorities.
Before the last call on the results of the company, the CEO Tim Cook cited the absence of Apple Intelligence, the internal general solution of the company AI, as a factor contributing to the slowdown in international sales.
“During the December quarter, we saw that in the markets where we deployed Apple Intelligence, that the performances from one year to the other on the iPhone 16 family were stronger than these markets where we did not have deployed Apple Intelligence “, the executive said to CNBC.
The company has put a bank on Apple Intelligence to pilot the next “super cycle” of the major iPhone – a term referring to a spectacular increase in sales of devices. Apple’s speed and strategy to deploy its own generative AI solution have hampered its growth, while Google continues to provide new Gemini features through Samsung phones, pixel devices and various other Android offers.
The increase in domestic competition has also consumed the Apple market share in China. Vivo took the lead in the fourth quarter of last year, with 17% of the market, according to numbers of the research cabinet, canalys. Huawei, who experienced a massive rebound following sanctions from the first Trump administration, increased 37% expeditions from one year to the next, marking a second place at 16% market share. Apple, which obtained 24% of the market at the same time last year, dropped at 15%, putting it in a dead third place with Xiaomi and Oppo.
Apple especially in the Alibaba agreement to help find part of this marke, but even if the partnership is taking a regulatory examination, the future of Apple China is not clear. Prices and trade tensions are likely to have an impact on sales on the key market.
The company notably forced Donald Trump during the president’s second term. Given cook $ 1 million at the Trump inaugural Committee in January. More recently, Apple followed the example of Google by changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America On its card application.
Techcrunch contacted Apple for additional comments on the Alibaba agreement.
