China is the biggest smartphone market in the world, but it has reported a 5 percent decline in shipments to 119 million units, according to a new report from Canalys.
There's some good news for Apple as the company has shipped 11 million units in the third quarter of 2017, a growth of 40 percent year-over-year. This makes it Apple's best performance in last eight quarters. Furthermore, the newly announced iPhone 8 accounted for a higher proportion of sales compared to iPhone 7 last year. Despite the growth, the Cupertino company is still ranked fifth in the report, and this growth is just for a short period of time as the market research firm believes the company will not be able to maintain the growth rate in the next quarter.
Canalys Research Analyst Mo Jia said,
“Apple’s growth this quarter is only temporary. The high sell-in caters to the pent-up demand of iPhone upgraders in the absence of the iPhone X. Price cuts on earlier models after announcing the iPhone 8 have also helped. However, Apple is unlikely to sustain this growth in Q4. While the iPhone X launches this week, its pricing structure and supply are inhibiting. The iPhone X will enjoy a healthy grey market status, but its popularity is unlikely to help Apple in the short term.”
On the other hand, Huawei leads the smartphone market with 22 million units, followed closely by Oppo with 21 million and Vivo by 20 million units. Xiaomi is in the fourth spot, but Canalys believes that the Chinese company will surpass Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo next month after China's online shopping festival on November 11.
Source: Canalys via TechCrunch | Image (graph) via Canalys
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