Apple’s Head of Retail, Deirdre O’Brien, in Apple Sanlitun, Beijing – Image credit: Apple
Sales of the iPhone are increasing in China, with Apple making a return to the country’s top five smartphones thanks to the iPhone 16.
Apple has been having a tough time in China, with rival smartphone producers putting the squeeze on iPhone in the market. Even so, it seems that iPhone is enjoying more support from consumers.
The figures released by IDC on Friday puts Apple in second place in the top five smartphone producers in China for Q3 2024, a return to the list for the company. IDC puts this down to a successful launch of the iPhone 16 in the market.
Apple is listed as having a 15.6% market share, behind Vivo with 18.6%, but ahead of Huawei with 15.3%. Xiaomi and Honor round out the list with 14.8% and 14.4% respectively.
Chinese smartphone market share figures – IDC
The percentage is a little bit of a dip from the same period last year, as Apple had a 16.1% share at that time.
While Apple’s impressive return to the roster is good, it’s not entirely better than last year. While Chinese smartphone shipments grew 3.2% year-on-year in the period to 68.8 million units, Apple saw a year-on-year shrink by 0.3%.
By contrast, third-place Huawei enjoyed 42% year-on-year growth for the third quarter of 2024.
The IDC figures aren’t the only numbers indicating an iPhone resurgence. On October 18, Counterpoint Research saw a 20% year-on-year jump in sales for the iPhone 16 versus iPhone 15 sales.
