Data & Research

Apple's iPhone slips to 7th spot in China's smartphone wars

Losing in a core market

Apple's iPhone slips to 7th spot in China's smartphone wars
Apple's iPhone has fallen into a distant seventh place in China's booming smartphone market according to numbers published by Canalys.

A matter of days after research suggested iPhone is losing ground to Android on the global stage, figures for China suggest Apple's smartphone now holds just 4.8 percent of the country's smartphone market.

The China syndrome

That puts the device at the back of the pack in China – well behind global rival Samsung on 17.6 percent and two local manufacturers Yulong (12.2 percent) and Xiaomi (5 percent), neither of which have an established global presence.



Analysts claim iPhone's inability to gain a foothold in China is due to the handset's comparatively expensive price point – a hindrance that may spur on any move by Apple to release a cheaper SKU.

During the second quarter sales period of 2013, 88.1 million smartphones were shipped to Chinese consumers.

Said figure exceeded the closest top four markets combined, with 32.9 million smartphones shipped to the US, 9 million shipped to India, 8.6 million shipped to Japan, and 7.4 million shipped to the UK.

[source: 9to5mac]

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