The list of top five smartphone vendors for the first quarter of 2015 sees Apple lead over Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung and Lenovo. (Photo : International Data Corporation)
According to the International Data Corporation, Apple has finally surpassed Xiaomi in China's extremely competitive smartphone market for the first quarter of 2015, making it the biggest vendor in one of the world's largest markets.
Xiaomi had a 13.7-percent market share, while Apple overtook them by securing 14.7 percent. Following them were Huawei, Samsung then Lenovo, respectively.
The previous five quarters have seen four different companies take the top spot. Samsung and Lenovo have reached the top in the past, but data shows they have suffered significant decline.
Apple enjoyed a 62.1-percent gain from the corresponding period in 2014. For this year's first quarter, they shipped 14.5 million iPhones, while Xiaomi shipped 13.5 million units. Huawei shipped 11.2 million phones.
The first quarter saw the market adjust to intensified competition, but the market may be saturated. The beginning of 2015 shows the smartphone market decline in China for the first time in six years, after growth exceeding 20 percent for several quarters. This time only 98.8 million smartphone units were shipped across China, but Apple dominated with the release of their iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
"Smartphones are becoming increasingly saturated in China," said Kitty Fok of 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 U.S., U.K., 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," Fok added.
