Customers line up to enter an Apple store on Sept. 25, 2015, in Shanghai, China. (Photo : Getty Images)
Despite legal headwinds in China, Apple remains the most popular smartphone brand in the country, according to a report published by China Mobile Communications Corp.
About 120 million Chinese subscribers are using the iPhone, or 15 percent of China Mobile's 800 million subscribers.
This is the first time that China Mobile, the world's largest telecom operator by subscribers, publicized its big data report, said China Daily.
Local brands Xiaomi Corp. and Huawei Technologies are rated as the second most popular smartphone brands in China, alongside South Korean company Samsung. Each of the three makers accounts for 9 percent of subscribers.
Vivo Communications comes in as the fastest-growing smartphone manufacturer due to its thriving offline retail sales channels in smaller cities.
This brings Vivo's success to another level after it crawled its way up to the world's top 5 smartphone vendors list for Q1 2016, elbowing out Xiaomi and Lenovo.
Meanwhile, Apple's continued dominance does not contradict the company's declining handset sales in China, said Counterpoint Technology Market Research's James Yan.
"Compared with the iPhone 6 series, which was a record-breaking hit, the iPhone 6s was far less popular, so its sales as a whole declined," Yan said. "But compared with some local players, the iPhone 6s still delivers a relatively good performance."
Despite making a good start a few months after launch, the iPhone 6s failed to sustain its momentum.
"The demand died out [quickly] once the replacement cycle was finished, given that iPhone 6s only has incremental improvements to iPhone 6," Yan said via China Daily.
Still, most Chinese consumers remain loyal to the Apple brand.
Forty-five percent of Apple owners prefer to purchase another iPhone when replacing their handset. This is higher than the 18 percent average for other brands.
China is an important target for Apple as it is the largest handset market in the world.
In a 2015 report, The Verge said that China could be the most crucial market for the tech giant.
"While the Americas should continue to be Apple's biggest market for the next couple of years, China's ascension shows no signs of slowing down as of yet," wrote The Verge. "Soon the world's biggest country will be the most vital market for the world's largest company."
