For years, Apple dominated the market for high-end smartphones in China. No other company made a device that could compete with the iPhone’s performance — or its position as a status object in the eyes of wealthy, cosmopolitan shoppers.
多年来，苹果一直主导着中国高端智能手机市场。其他公司生产的设备与iPhone的性能相比没有竞争性，或在有钱的、见多识广的购物者眼里，不具有iPhone的那种地位象征。

But evidence is mounting that, for many in China, the iPhone no longer holds the appeal it used to. During the first six weeks of the year, historically a peak season for Chinese shoppers to spring for a new phone, iPhone sales fell 24 percent from a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research, which analyzes the smartphone market.
但越来越多的证据表明，对许多中国人来说，iPhone不再具有以前的那种吸引力。每年的前六周历来是中国消费者购买新手机的旺季，据分析智能手机市场的Counterpoint Research的数据，中国今年头六周的iPhone销量与去年同期相比下降了24%。

Meanwhile, sales for one of Apple’s longstanding Chinese rivals, Huawei, surged 64 percent.
与此同时，作为苹果在中国的老对手之一，华为的销量猛增了64%。

It’s a challenging time for Apple. Analysts say its latest product, a $3,500 virtual reality headset released in February, is still years away from gaining mainstream appeal. This month, Apple has taken two regulatory hits: a European Union fine of nearly $2 billion for anticompetitive music streaming practices and a U.S. government lawsuit claiming Apple violated antitrust laws.
对苹果来说，这是个充满挑战的时候。它在今年2月发布了售价3500美元的虚拟现实头显，分析人士说，这款最新产品距离获得主流吸引力仍需数年时间。苹果公司还在本月遭受了两项监管打击：欧盟对其在音乐流媒体方面的反竞争行为罚款近20亿美元；此外，美国政府对苹果公司提起诉讼，指控其违反了反垄断法。

For a decade, China has been the iPhone’s most important market after the United States and accounted for roughly 20 percent of Apple’s sales. Now the company’s grip on China could be dislodged by a series of factors: a slowdown in consumer spending, growing pressure from Beijing for people to shun devices made by U.S. companies and the resurgence of national champion Huawei.
十年来，中国一直是仅次于美国的最重要的iPhone市场，约占苹果销售额的20%。现在，一系列因素可能会削弱苹果在中国市场的地位：消费者减缓支出，中国政府要求人们避免使用美国公司制造的设备的压力越来越大，以及国内龙头企业华为的复兴。

“The golden time for Apple in China is over,” said Linda Sui, a senior director at TechInsights, a market research firm. One of the biggest reasons is the rising tension between the United States and China over trade and technology, Ms. Sui said. Without a significant lessening of geopolitical stress, it will be difficult for Apple to retain its position.
“苹果在中国的黄金时代已经结束，”市场研究公司TechInsights的高级总监隋倩说。其中一个最大的原因是中美有关贸易和科技的紧张关系日益加剧，隋倩说道。地缘政治压力不出现明显缓解的话，苹果将很难保持在中国市场的地位。

“It’s not just about consumers,” Ms. Sui said. “It’s about the big picture, the two superpowers competing with each other — that’s a fundamental thing behind the whole shift.”
“这不只是消费者的问题，”隋倩说。“这事关大局，两个超级大国之间的相互竞争是大局改变的根本原因。”

Few American companies have more to lose from these heightened tensions than Apple, whose newest handset, the iPhone 15, went on sale in September. It is the first iPhone line to feature a titanium frame and include an action button that can be programmed to take photos or turn on the flashlight.
在中美紧张关系加剧的情况下，几乎没有美国企业面临的损失有苹果公司大，它的最新款手机iPhone 15已于去年9月上市。这是第一个采用钛金属框架的iPhone系列，并增加了一个操作按钮，可通过设置进行拍照或打开手电筒等操作。

“Five years ago, Apple had really strong branding in China — people would bring tents to wait through the whole night outside the Apple Store for the next product launch,” said Lucas Zhong, a Shanghai-based analyst at Canalys, a market research firm. “The iPhone 15 launch wasn’t nearly as popular.”
“五年前，苹果在中国是一个非常强大的品牌，人们会带着帐篷在苹果专卖店外彻夜等待新款产品的发布，”市场研究公司Canalys驻上海的分析师钟晓磊说。“iPhone 15的推出并没有引起太大的轰动。”

Six months later, Apple has plastered billboards across cities like Shanghai, reminding residents they can still buy an iPhone 15 nearby. Similar promotions helped the iPhone account for four of the six top selling smartphones in China in the final three months of last year, the company said during a call with Wall Street analysts. But the prominent advertising did not persuade Jason Li, 22, to visit the Apple Store on Nanjing East Road, in the heart of Shanghai’s shopping district, when he needed to replace his iPhone 13 Pro Max.
六个月后，苹果在上海等城市打出大幅广告，提醒居民他们仍能就近购买iPhone 15。公司在与华尔街的分析师们举行的电话会议上说，类似的促销活动帮助iPhone在去年最后三个月在中国最畅销的六款智能手机中占了四款。但醒目的广告并没有说服22岁的贾森·李（音），当他需要更换自己的iPhone 13 Pro Max时，他没有去位于上海购物区中心南京东路的苹果店。

Instead, Mr. Li went to the Huawei flagship store directly across the street, where he contemplated the Mate 60 Pro.
李先生反而直接去了街对面的华为旗舰店，在那里他盘算着是否购买Mate 60 Pro。

“I don’t want to use iOS anymore,” he said, referring to the iPhone’s operating system. “It’s a bit stale.”
“就不想再用iOS，”他指的是iPhone的操作系统。“就是有点没有新鲜感。”

Apple declined to comment.
苹果拒绝对本文置评。

For some in China, buying a phone has become a political statement. Debates over whether using an iPhone is disrespectful to Chinese tech companies or akin to handing personal data over to the U.S. government have erupted online. Last year, employees at some Chinese government agencies reported being told not to use iPhones for work.
对一些中国人来说，买手机已变成一种政治声明。中国的网上已爆发了有关争论，比如使用iPhone是不是对中国科技公司不尊重，或者是不是相当于将个人数据交给了美国政府。去年，据一些在中国政府部门工作的人表示，他们接到通知，不要在工作中使用iPhone。

These directives surfaced less than two weeks after Huawei unveiled the Mate 60 Pro, a smartphone equipped with the company’s own operating system and a computer chip more advanced than had previously been made in China.
这些指示是在华为推出Mate 60 Pro不到两周后作出的，这款智能手机配备了华为自己的操作系统，芯片也比过去的国产芯片更先进。

Huawei released the device in the final days of a trip to China by Gina M. Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary. Chinese commentators and state media heralded it as a triumph for Huawei in the face of Washington’s attempts to restrict the company from developing just such technology.
华为在美国商务部长吉娜·雷蒙多访华的最后几天发布了这款手机。中国的评论员们和官方媒体将其誉为华为在华盛顿试图限制该公司开发此类技术的努力面前的一次胜利。

The Mate 60 Pro was an immediate sensation. Its boost to Huawei’s sales carried over into the first six weeks of this year, when the company claimed the second-largest share of the smartphone market, up to 17 percent from 9 percent a year earlier, according to data from Counterpoint.
Mate 60 Pro立即引起了轰动。它提高了华为手机的销量，而且增长势头一直延续到今年头六周，华为宣称已经占据了中国智能手机市场的第二大份额，从一年前的9%上升到了17%（来自Counterpoint的数据）。

“Today, holding the Mate 60 series gives people a feeling like they had many years ago if someone saw them holding an iPhone on the street,” said Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research in Hong Kong. This is especially true for people over 35, the age group that buys the most smartphones, he said.
“今天，手持Mate 60系列的手机给人的感觉，就像很多年前如果有人在街上看到他们拿着iPhone一样，”香港研究公司Counterpoint Research的高级分析师林科宇说。他表示，对35岁以上的人来说尤其如此，这个年龄段的人是智能手机的最大买家。

China’s smartphone market is divided up by a number of companies. The domestic brands Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi jostle with Apple and Huawei for the largest pieces.
中国智能手机市场的份额由多家公司分享。国产品牌Vivo、Oppo和小米与苹果和华为争夺最大的几块份额。

Apple started selling iPhones in China in 2009. The last time it was losing ground to Huawei, in 2019, the Trump administration inadvertently extended Apple a lifeline by restricting U.S. technology firms from dealing with Huawei. Google, which makes the Android operating system, and several semiconductor companies cut off their support of the Chinese smartphone maker.
苹果从2009年起开始在中国销售iPhone。苹果上次在与华为的竞争上失利是2019年，当时，特朗普政府通过限制美国科技公司与华为做生意，无意中救了苹果一命。安卓操作系统的制造商谷歌以及几家半导体公司切断了对这家中国智能手机制造商的供应。

As Huawei struggled, Apple rebounded. In 2022, its share of phones sold in China rose to 22 percent, from 9 percent in 2019, according to Counterpoint. Apple reported record revenue of $74 billion from the region during its fiscal year ending in September 2022.
随着华为陷入困境，苹果在中国的市场份额出现了反弹。据Counterpoint的数据，苹果在中国手机市场的份额从2019年的9%上升到了2022年的22%。苹果在截至2022年9月的财年报告中表示，来自大中华区的收入达到了创纪录的740亿美元。

But the restrictions also forced Huawei to develop its own wireless chip and operating system, resulting in the technology behind the Mate 60 Pro. The operating system has been a draw for Chinese shoppers, and many of China’s biggest tech companies have made apps exclusively for it, further walling off users from platforms used outside China.
但美国政府的限制也迫使华为开发自己的无线通讯芯片和操作系统，最终研发出了Mate 60 Pro背后的技术。华为的操作系统一直对中国购物者具有吸引力，许多中国最大的科技企业专门为其开发了应用程序，进一步将中国用户与境外使用的平台隔离开来。

Huawei’s innovation has made Apple’s latest models appear stodgy by comparison. And as China’s economy has struggled to rebound from the Covid pandemic, many consumers are hesitant to spend on what feels like an incremental upgrade. The owners of about 125 million out of 215 million iPhones in China have not upgraded to newer devices in the last three years, according to Daniel Ives, an Apple analyst at Wedbush Securities.
相比之下，华为的创新让苹果的最新款手机显得枯燥无味。由于中国经济在新冠疫情后的复苏步履艰难，许多消费者对是否要花钱对手机进行渐进式升级犹豫不决。韦德布什证券公司的苹果分析师丹尼尔·艾夫斯说，中国人总共拥有2.15亿部iPhone，大约1.25亿部的拥有者在过去三年没有升级到更新的设备。

Apple has responded to the challenges in China. Its chief executive, Tim Cook, has traveled to the country and visited Apple’s suppliers. Last week, he attended the splashy opening of an Apple Store near Shanghai’s Jing’an Temple — the company’s eighth store in Shanghai and 57th in China — to a crowd of Apple fans. The company also said it was expanding its research and development labs in Shanghai.
苹果已对在中国面临的挑战做出回应。首席执行官蒂姆·库克前往中国造访苹果的供应商。上周，他出席了上海静安寺附近一家苹果专卖店为一群苹果粉丝举行的盛大开业仪式，这是苹果在上海的第8家店，在中国的第57家店。苹果还表示，正在扩建公司在上海的应用研究实验室。

But for some shoppers, Apple’s efforts have been overshadowed by Washington’s approach to the company’s Chinese rival.
但在一些消费者眼里，美国政府对待苹果中国竞争对手的做法给苹果的努力蒙上了阴影。。

While waiting at the Genius Bar for help with his ailing iPhone 12 at the Apple Store on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, Chi Miaomiao, 38, said he had recently bought Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro as his second phone. He was drawn to Huawei after its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested by the Canadian authorities in 2018 at the request of the United States, which accused her of misleading banks about Huawei’s business in Iran. Ms. Meng’s detention set off a flood of support in China, where many saw her as a hostage.
现年38岁的迟淼淼（音）正在上海南京东路的苹果专卖店的天才吧等人来帮助解决他的iPhone 12出现的故障。他说，他最近买了一部华为Mate 60 Pro作为自己的第二部手机。2018年，华为首席财务官孟晚舟在美国要求下被加拿大当局逮捕，美国指控她在华为的伊朗业务上误导了银行。这件事后，迟先生对华为发生了兴趣。孟晚舟被逮捕在中国引发了对她的强烈支持，许多人认为她是作为人质被扣留的。

“Huawei is our own brand, and because of this political incident, I think we Chinese should be united,” Mr. Chi said.
“ 因为华为是我们自己的品牌，因为一个政治事件，我觉得我们国人应该也是应该团结的，”迟先生说。

Upstairs on the Apple sales floor, Li Bin, 23, and two friends debated the latest iPhone models. Huawei and Apple were nearly comparable in quality, Mr. Li said, and though he thought the iPhone was slightly better, it was also more expensive.
在苹果专卖店二层的销售处，现年23岁的李斌（音）和两个朋友正在争论最新款的iPhone。李先生说，华为手机在质量上与苹果的几乎不相上下，虽然他认为iPhone稍好一点，但价格也更高。

“I may switch to an iPhone,” Mr. Li said, “when I get richer in the future.”
“ 以后经济富裕的情况下可能会换(iPhone)，”李先生说。

Li You和Zixu Wang对本文有研究贡献。

Meaghan Tobin是时报科技记者，常驻台北，报道亚洲地区的商业和科技新闻，重点关注中国。

艾莎(Alexandra Stevenson)是时报上海分社社长，报道中国经济和社会新闻。

Tripp Mickle为时报报道苹果公司和硅谷新闻，常驻旧金山。他对苹果公司的关注包括产品发布、制造问题和政治挑战。他也报道整个科技行业的趋势，包括裁员、生成式AI和机器人出租车等。

翻译：纽约时报中文网