Globally, Apple has shipped far fewer units of the X than projected. A recent Bloomberg report claims that Samsung, the chosen supplier of the X’s new OLED screens, has only shipped half the amount of displays it had prepared for Apple. As a result, many of those displays may now end up in Android handsets instead.
In the U.S., customers have tended to prefer the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the X’s cheaper cousins, while European customers have similarly shown a reluctance to buy into the X’s hype. But despite intense competition from domestic brands, the X is popular among China’s affluent urban population.
“The iPhone X is doing much better than we’d expected in China, given the high ticket price,” said Mengmeng Zhang of Counterpoint Research. “The X is also performing better in China than in other markets.”