Affiliate Disclosure
If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our ethics policy.

Data suggests China's smartphone decline worse than expected, Apple's iPhone pushed out of fourth place

Using animoji on a Chinese iPhone X.

Last updated

The Chinese smartphone market was actually hit harder in the March quarter than a recent report suggested, dropping 21 percent year-over-year to 91 million units, according to a separate analysis.

Eight of the top 10 vendors saw their shipments fall year-over-year, with companies like Samsung and Meizu narrowing to less than half of Q1 2017 figures, wrote research firm Canalys. One of the exceptions was Xiaomi, which is said to have grown shipments 37 percent to 12 million, supplanting Apple in fourth place.

Canalys didn't immediately provide Apple's numbers, but noted that the top four brands — Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi — represented over 73 percent of shipments.

"The level of competition has forced every vendor to imitate the others' product portfolios and go-to-market strategies," analyst Mo Jia added. "But the costs of marketing and channel management in a country as big as China are huge, and only vendors that have reached a certain size can cope. While Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi must contend with a shrinking Chinese market, they can take comfort from the fact that it will continue to consolidate, and that their size will help them last longer than other smaller players."

The Canalys data would appear to conflict with a report by Counterpoint Research, which not only suggested an 8 percent industry decline but that Apple held on to fourth place, with its shipments rising 32 percent. Much of this was attributed to the iPhone X, which despite being prohibitively expensive for most Chinese drew attention from the people that could afford it.

Earlier in April, UBS analyst Steven Milunovich suggested that Apple was "fairly saturated" in the country, and predicted relatively flat sales with small long-term growth.

A more conclusive picture should emerge when Apple formally announces its March-quarter results on May 1. Apple normally avoids publicizing iPhone sales data until its quarterly announcements, leaving researchers to gauge the product's performance by other means.



18 Comments

nunzy 6 Years · 662 comments

China is a big country. But you need a certain average income to afford Apple products.

Some Chinese people can afford Apple, but not all.

ireland 18 Years · 17436 comments

Are you telling me China aren't putting the most expensive phone in number one place? I'm surprised Apple is in forth place in China.

asdasd 21 Years · 5682 comments

nunzy said:
China is a big country. But you need a certain average income to afford Apple products.

Some Chinese people can afford Apple, but not all.

About 200-300M of them are as rich as westerners. 

johnarpy 11 Years · 6 comments

If you read the report from Counterpoint Research which lists the percentages by brand you will see that the top 5 smartphones hold 73% of all sales.  It looks like Canalys specifically left out the Apple figure and added it to their group of four.  The total can’t be exactly the same for the top 4 in one report and the top five in the other.  There is obviously an unintentional or intentional error.  Why would Apple not be mentioned? Perhaps someone is trying to effect the stock before the results are announced next week.

Folio 7 Years · 698 comments

Yes, China booming middle class. Purchases of bmw Audi etc help make VW largest carmaker. I’m no expert. Curious if iOS differentiates a device as much in China as in US. Never viewed app offerings in China. Anyone know if Apple still adding stores? Hitting many second tier cities?