In China’s domestic market, local brands are the most popular smartphones, as illustrated by IDC’s Q3 stats last year, which show Vivo in the lead. Apple only jumped to second place thanks to the debut of the iPhone 16, while it did not make it into the top five in Q2. In December, it turns out, smartphone shipments in China grew by 22.1%, but imported brands added only 0.6%.
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In fact, the products of most foreign companies are still assembled in China, so they can be considered imported only in terms of the origin of the trademark. As Reuters notes, citing December statistics from the CAICT association, in the last month of last year, smartphones of foreign brands on the Chinese market increased their supply volumes year-on-year from 3.72 to 3.74 million units. That is, the increase was measured at a modest 0.6%.
For comparison, smartphone shipments of all brands in China increased by 22.1% to 34.53 million in December. In other words, foreign brands accounted for just over 10% of shipments in December. It is generally accepted that Apple products play a key role in this category on the Chinese market. In the third quarter of last year, for example, they accounted for 15.6% of the local smartphone market. The fact that shipments did not increase much in December indicates some stagnation in demand. On the other hand, Apple Intelligence features will become available to Chinese iPhone 16 users in May, so demand for smartphones of this generation may increase significantly.