iPhone 16’s lack of Apple Intelligence in China leaves market open to rivals like Huawei

Apple’s iPhone 16 launch is clouded in China by competitive pressure from local players and uncertainty over when the country might get access to its Apple Intelligence feature, according to analysts.

Hours after the US consumer electronics giant is expected to launch its iPhone 16 line-up on September 9, California time, Huawei Technologies will have its own event, where it is expected to unveil its ‘tri-fold’ smartphone with two hinges. Richard Yu Chengdong, the chairman of Huawei’s global business group, said the company will launch “the most leading, innovative, and disruptive” product at the event scheduled for September 10, China time.

Apple has already been facing mounting pressure in China, one of the company’s most important markets, and recently fell out of the top five vendors by shipments. Its challenges could be exacerbated with the iPhone 16 given uncertainty around its ability to offer Apple Intelligence in the country. The built-in artificial intelligence (AI) is powered in part by OpenAI’s GPT large language models (LLMs), which cannot be made commercially available in China.