For the first time in a while, the top five smartphone vendors in China are all native, with Apple's position falling to sixth place.

Apple's Chinese market share fell to 14 percent in Q2 according to tech market analysts at Canalys, putting the smartphone titan just short of Xiaomi. A similar report from IDC indicates the iPhone's shrinking market share was partly due to a 3.1 percent drop in annual shipments, while shipments of Android-based phones (including Chinese models) increased by 11.1 percent.

In contrast to the iPhone, the overall Chinese smartphone market grew by about nine to ten percent compared to Q2 of last year.

Apple was previously in first place in Q4, but slipped in Q1 to third, fourth, or even fifth place depending on who you ask. Canalys and IDC can't quite agree on the current rankings, but concur that Vivo is in first, Xiaomi is in fifth, and in the middle are Huawei, Honor, and Oppo. However, both reports found that Huawei's year-on-year growth was enormous, with Canalys giving a figure of 41 percent and IDC 50 percent.

Huawei's high-end smartphones are apparently giving Apple a run for its money. "In the first half of the year, Huawei was the leader in the market despite the US trade restrictions, further closing the gap with Apple in the >$600 segment," IDC senior research analyst Arthur Guo said.

"The premiumization trend is also happening in China as consumers tend to use their devices for a longer time," fellow IDC analyst Jacob Zhu stated. "That drove the >$600 shipments share to nearly 26 percent in 2Q24 from around 23 percent in the same period last year."

However, Canalys argues, part of Apple's market share decline could be ascribed to a strategy to keep iPhone prices stable and the margins of channel partners healthy. The iPhone is just barely behind Xiaomi according to the firm's figures, and with the introduction of Apple Intelligence it seems more than plausible that Apple could make a comeback.

At the company's previous quarterly earnings call in May, Apple CEO Tim Cook described China as "the most competitive market in the world" for the iPhone, though he expressed optimism for the long term. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/07/26/iphone_kicked_out_of_chinas/