Market research firm Gartner Inc. has revealed on Thursday, Aug. 20, that smartphone sales in China, the world's biggest market for the devices, fell for the first time in the second quarter, the China Daily reported.
The company said that sales of smartphones declined 4 percent in the quarter, the first year-over-year fall.
"China has reached saturation--its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers," Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner, said.
According to the report, China accounted for about 30 percent of total smartphones sales during the second quarter.
Gartner noted that since 2013, worldwide smartphone sales grew at the slowest pace.
While Apple Inc.'s share of the worldwide smartphone sales market rose to 14.6 percent from 12.2 percent a year earlier, the total iPhone sales in China rose 68 percent to 11.9 million units, Gartner said.
On the other hand, Apple's big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus broke iPhone sales records when they were launched about 11 months ago.
Gartner further said that rival Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s share of the global smartphone market also dropped from 26.2 percent to 21.9 percent.
The report said that although Samsung has released the new S6 models in April, Apple's large-screen iPhones continue to challenge Samsung's premium phones.
Meanwhile, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., the fourth largest smartphone maker globally, logged the highest sales growth rate of 46.3 percent, due mainly to strong international sales and 4G smartphone sales in China.
In early trading on the NASDAQ, Apple's shares dropped about 2 percent.