The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that Apple's new iPhone 15 is selling far worse in China than its predecessor, reflecting stubbornly weak consumption as well as the rise of rivals like Huawei Technologies. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that sales of Apple's flagship device are down 4.5 per cent compared with the iPhone 14 over their first 17 days after release, Counterpoint Research estimates. Jefferies analysts led by Edison Lee reckoned sales of the iPhone 15 were down by an even sharper double-digit percentage from its predecessor after Huawei outsold Apple over all, powered by the surprising debut of the Mate 60 Pro. The twin reports mark a potential blow to Apple as it grapples with the weakest smart-phone demand in a decade and a backlash from overheating models. If the estimates are accurate, they represent one of the iPhone's worst debuts in China since around 2018, when local names like Oppo and Vivo began to captivate Asian consumers. Counterpoint blamed the iPhone's slump in China mainly on an economy struggling to rebound from its COVID trough. It stressed that in the United States, the iPhone 15 likely posted a double-digit rise over 2022 in the first nine days of sales.