Apple iPhone loses Chinese market share for first time as Oppo, Huawei, Vivo gain ground

Apple’s iPhone suffered its first ever decline in its share of the mainland’s smartphone market last year, as it lost ground to the three top-selling Chinese vendors.

Oppo, Huawei and Vivo between them accounted for nearly half of the domestic smartphone market in 2016.

Apple, the world’s most-valuable technology company, saw a year-on-year fall in its share of the mainland market. Apple shipped 44.9 million iPhones in the mainland last year, giving it a 9.6 per cent market share, down from 13.6 per cent in 2015, according to the latest report from IDC.

The smartphone market in the mainland grew by 8.7 per cent year-on-year in 2016. The three top Chinese vendors shipped more than 224 million smartphones, taking more than 48 per cent of the domestic market share between them.

Oppo took 16.8 per cent of the sector, with Huawei in second place on 16.4 per cent and Vivo third with 14.8 per cent. Apple and Xiaomi ranked fourth and fifth after them.

The new trend shows a growing acceptance among Chinese consumers of vendors in their home country, as product features and marketing efforts improve.

“Increased dependence on mobile apps has led consumers to seek phone upgrades, thus helping drive the large growth in the fourth quarter of 2016. In lower tiered cities, there was a similar demand by consumers, which Oppo and Vivo met by aggressively pushing mid-range smartphones in these cities,” said Xiaohan Tay, a senior market analyst with IDC Asia and Pacific.