Apple had its worst day since August, down 11% from its peak in December

the apple shares closed down 4% on Thursday, the worst day since Aug. 5, after several reports of poor iPhone sales in China.

The iPhone maker’s share price is down nearly 12% from its most recent peak in December, making it the worst-performing 2025 of the seven biggest tech stocks so far.

The slide follows a report by market research firm Canalys on Thursday that suggested Apple had slipped to third place in smartphone sales in China in 2024, behind home-grown manufacturers Vivo and Huawei.

Apple shipped 15% of the 284 million phones sold in China last year, according to the report, but that was down 17% year-on-year. Vivo and Huawei, on the other hand, had strong growth.

TSMC, a major supplier to Apple, on Thursday reported a forecast for smartphone sales for the first quarter, suggesting a sequential decline of nearly 6%. TSMC, which makes the chips at the heart of Apple’s devices, blamed the drop on seasonality. TSMC said AI chips accounted for more than half of its revenue in the fourth quarter, replacing smartphones as its biggest business.

Ming-Chi Kuo, a prominent Apple supply chain analyst, on Monday he wrote It expects iPhone shipments to decline 6% annually through the first half of 2025, with most of the decline occurring in the second quarter. Kuo wrote that he believes Apple Intelligence, the company’s artificial intelligence system, which is not yet available in China, is not driving iPhone demand.

“There is no evidence of Apple Intelligence’s ability to benefit hardware replacement cycles or service businesses,” Kuo wrote.

Apple reports its December quarter results on January 30.

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