China’s smartphone market is witnessing signs of saturation, a new survey report has revealed.
According to IDC, China’s smartphone shipment in the last quarter has dropped for the first time in nine years. Total smartphone shipments in January-March accounted for 98.8 million, down 4 per cent year-on-year and 8 per cent on the previous quarter.
“Smartphones are becoming increasingly saturated in China,” said Kitty Fok, managing director at IDC China.
“China is oftentimes thought of as an emerging market but the reality is that the vast majority of phones sold in China today are smartphones, similar to other mature markets like the US, UK, Australia, and Japan. Just like these markets, convincing existing users as well as feature phone users to upgrade to new smartphones will now be the key to further growth in the China market.”
Apple topped the smartphone vendor list in China during the quarter, selling 14.5 million units, up more than 62 percent from last year, and reporting a 14.7 per cent market share.
Rise in Apple’s China smartphone market share can be attributed to the whooping success of the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, IDC added.
China-based smartphone maker Xiaomi followed Apple for the second position with a 13.7 market share, while another Chinese firm Huawei stood in third place with 11.4 percent market share.
Meanwhile, Samsung, which held the top spot in the first quarter of 2014, slipped to fourth place with 9.7 percent market share and Lenovo came in at fifth place with 8.3 per cent market share, down from 10.2 per cent a year ago.
