Apple is offering rare discounts of up to 500 yuan ($68.50) on its latest iPhone models in China, as the U.S. tech giant moves to defend its market share against rising competition from domestic rivals like Huawei.

The four-day promotion, running from Jan. 4-7, applies to several iPhone models when purchased using specific payment methods, according to its website, Reuters reported.

The flagship iPhone 16 Pro with a starting price of 7,999 yuan and the iPhone 16 Pro Max with a starting price of 9,999 yuan will see the highest discount of 500 yuan. The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will receive a 400 yuan reduction.

The discounts come as consumers remain cautious with spending amid China's slowing economy and deflationary pressures, with the country's consumer inflation hitting a five-month low in November.

Apple is grappling with declining market share in China, the world's largest smartphone market, where local manufacturers have intensified competition.

Huawei has emerged as a particularly strong challenger since its return to the premium segment in August 2023 with locally-made chipsets. Huawei had cut the prices of a variety of high-end devices, including mobile phones, by up to 3,000 yuan over the weekend on one of China's leading e-commerce platforms.

Apple briefly fell out of China's top five smartphone vendors in the second quarter of 2024 before recovering in the third quarter. The U.S. company's smartphone sales in China still slipped 0.3% during the third quarter from a year earlier, while Huawei's sales surged 42%, according to research firm IDC.

The Apple promotion also includes discounts of 200 to 300 yuan on older iPhone models, as well as other categories of products such as MacBook laptops and iPad tablets. Customers must use designated payment methods including WeChat Pay or Alipay to qualify for the discounts.

($1 = 7.2992 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the U.S. Treasury Department's computer security guardrails this month and stole documents in what Treasury called a "major incident," according to a letter to lawmakers, that Treasury officials provided to Reuters on Monday.

The hackers compromised third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said.

According to the letter, hackers "gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users."

The Treasury Department said it was alerted to the breach by BeyondTrust on Dec. 8 and that it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to assess the hack's impact.

Treasury officials didn't immediately respond to an email seeking further details about the hack. The FBI did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment, while CISA referred questions back to the Treasury Department.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected any responsibility for the hack, saying that Beijing "firmly opposes the U.S.'s smear attacks against China without any factual basis."

A spokesperson for BeyondTrust, based in Johns Creek, Georgia, told Reuters in an email that the company "previously identified and took measures to address a security incident in early December 2024" involving its remote support product. BeyondTrust "notified the limited number of customers who were involved," and law enforcement was notified, the spokesperson said. "BeyondTrust has been supporting the investigative efforts."

The spokesperson referred to a statement posted on the company'swebsite, on Dec. 8 sharing some details from the investigation, including that a digital key had been compromised in the incident and that an investigation was under way. That statement was last updated Dec. on 18.

Tom Hegel, a threat researcher at cybersecurity company SentinelOne (S.N), said the reported security incident "fits a well-documented pattern of operations by PRC-linked groups, with a particular focus on abusing trusted third-party services - a method that has become increasingly prominent in recent years," he said, using an acronym for the People's Republic of China."

Iranian authorities have lifted a ban on Meta's instant messaging platform WhatsApp and Google Play as a first step to scale back internet restrictions, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.

The Islamic Republic has some of the strictest controls on Internet access in the world, but its blocks on U.S.-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are routinely bypassed by tech-savvy Iranians using virtual private networks, Reuters reported.

"A positive majority vote has been reached to lift limitations on access to some popular foreign platforms such as WhatsApp and Google Play", Iran's official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday, referring to a meeting on the matter headed by President Masoud Pezeshkian.

"Today the first step in removing internet limitations... has been taken," IRNA cited Iran's Minister of Information and Communications Technology Sattar Hashemi as saying.

Social media platforms were widely used in anti-government protests in Iran.