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Apple Regains Top Spot in China's Smartphone Market
- Thread starter MacRumors
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zarmanto
macrumors 65816
"Care" is a subjective scale. I "care" -- but not so much that this makes me jump for joy or anything. I simply find it interesting, and appreciate that MacRumors chose to report on it.
Why, you ask? Do I really need to have a reason, to find something interesting?
HouseLannister
macrumors 68040
Not in China. You know, the topic of this article.
I don't even know what I am looking at with your charts. You are talking about US dollars, not Yuan (¥), and posting a 2-year-old image of 2022 and 2023 market share without saying whose market. China? US? Global?
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zarmanto
macrumors 65816
Probably should qualify that by putting "their own" in quotes, given that the iPhone is designed by a US company. Manufacturing is only one aspect of the process; contrast that with Xiaomi, where the company HQ is actually based in China.
Check what happens when a product from a foreign company (Apple) made in China is sold in China...
turbineseaplane
macrumors Penryn
If the data on that chart is recategorized by OS, two interesting things emerge:
1) China is reasonably supporting a 3rd OS -- Huawei, with it's HarmonyOS, has slightly more 2025 market share than iOS
2) Android has about 2/3rd the 2025 market share (if you assume most of Other is Android-compatible phones)
If I was an application developer building apps for the Chinese mobile market, I would either a) target Android or b) target Android, HarmonyOS, and iOS. All else being equal ignoring a potentially higher market share of a particular OS for the market segment my app is targeting...
iPhones sold in China are not the same models as those available outside China. While they may appear similar, most iPhones sold in China still feature a dual physical nano-SIM tray. The new 'iPhone Air' became the first eSIM-supported iPhone in China; however, due to security regulations, it only supports domestic Chinese eSIMs—foreign eSIMs cannot be loaded onto a mainland China-model iPhone.
Chinese models traditionally lack FaceTime Audio (only Video is available) and have restricted Satellite SOS features, as they must utilise China's own BeiDou satellite network. In 2026, to sell iPhones with AI features, Apple partnered with Alibaba and Baidu, as Western AI models (like ChatGPT or Google's Gemini) are restricted in China. All AI features must be 'censorship-compliant' and vetted by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) before they can be updated via iOS 18.6+ for Chinese users.
Therefore, technically, the iPhone sold in China is not the standard model you find in any shop, online or otherwise, outside China. It is the Chinese model, made only for the Chinese. 😉
Chinese models traditionally lack FaceTime Audio (only Video is available) and have restricted Satellite SOS features, as they must utilise China's own BeiDou satellite network. In 2026, to sell iPhones with AI features, Apple partnered with Alibaba and Baidu, as Western AI models (like ChatGPT or Google's Gemini) are restricted in China. All AI features must be 'censorship-compliant' and vetted by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) before they can be updated via iOS 18.6+ for Chinese users.
Therefore, technically, the iPhone sold in China is not the standard model you find in any shop, online or otherwise, outside China. It is the Chinese model, made only for the Chinese. 😉
I was not aware they were quite that different and thanks for sharing. I am assuming other than the physical versus eSIM, the hardware is the same? Or do the hardware differences go deeper?
Curious, why FaceTime Video but not FaceTime Audio?
Also curious, do Chinese iPhones get iOS updates on a different schedule? For example, did they lag on iOS 26 and/or retain access to iOS 18 longer?
Only the last 2
- Battery and charging limitations
- Less hardware flexibility and customization
telephoto, ai, foldable, is not everyone's likes, at least in my case.
not saying they are not important, but they are not must have to everyone.
This is the same argument that Eric Schmidt made waaaay back in 2011 when he said developers would switch to prioritizing Android in 6 months due to higher market share.
Never happened. Market share is meaningless if the people using the devices don’t spend money. Developers still favor iOS due to the fact an average iPhone user spends almost 4x as much as the average Android user.
Don’t have numbers for HarmonyOS but I doubt their store is making money like The App Store.
They absolutely dominate in China. Unless you want to show me any vendor in
China with an ASP even remotely close to Apple.
Not really sure why you’re having a hard time understanding this. It’s been common knowledge for years Apple owns the flagship market. ASP and revenues prove this.
artifex
macrumors 6502a
Meanwhile, over in South Korea, apparently younger people are including iPhones in their mockery of millennial fashion choices.
It’s an Apple forum and I’m surprised how many people are upset that Apple is doing WELL.
Am I reading it wrong? iPhone 17 lineup only accounting for one fifth of the total Q4 sale for Apple seems unlikely...
I'm not entirely convinced that the iPhone will become the top seller in the world, given all those appealing phones from Oppo, Xiaomi, Huawei, and others, which come with much more up-to-date operating systems and especially advanced camera systems. Perhaps it could still hold the top position in the US (or Canada), but in Europe, it does not, and neither does it in the broader world outside the US (and Canada), not even in neighbouring Mexico.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
Windows 11 is “more up to date” then windows 10 a yet? The phrase “up to date” is highly subjective as is “advanced camera systems”.
I doubt apples’ iPhone will ever be the top seller on the planet, mostly due to price. But we have been wrong before.
Abazigal
Contributor
To me, it's less of celebrating, and more a reaffirmation that Apple has managed to carve out a very profitable niche for itself, and that it's not going anywhere.
For as long as I can remember, Apple was constantly being positioned as 1 flop away from implosion. iOS is too closed, the hardware too expensive, developers would abandon the App Store due to its smaller market share, the list of doomsday predictions went on.
But what these critics didn't seem to realise that 16% or 20% or whatever minority share Apple commands still works out to an impressive number of iPhones sold in an absolute sense. What more when iPhones are as profitable as they are, and when Apple has numerous ways of monetising their user base after the sales of the initial device. This is in contrast to android phones, where 30% of an app purchase goes to Google, not the smartphone OEM. Making this an extremely unprofitable endeavour for all but a few smartphone brands who probably are still not that profitable either way.
But they would have you believe that profitless market share is somehow better, or more sustainable, and that Apple's business model is "wrong". Perhaps the real moral of the story here is that you don't run a successful business by giving your customers everything they want (especially if what they are clamouring for are lower prices and more "specs").
Somehow, the myriad of supposed limitations and drawbacks just don't seem to matter to Apple's billion strong install base worldwide. 😛
Wasn't arguing against iOS nor predicting its demise. Rather trying to reframe the raw data from curiosity/entertainment to potential conclusions or decisions.
Agree, that's why it important to focus on the market share of each OS in the segment that the app will be targeting.
Then the universe is larger than just paid/developer sustaining apps. As these devices become basic to day-to-day life, there are companies tasked with creating apps for things like paying for parking, check-in on flights, as well as opening documents, etc. Different considerations for a developer making an app for communications versus facilitating real-world commerce versus games, etc.
Probably but the comparison would be HarmonyOS China App Store versus iOS China app store and more usefully category by category (i.e. I wouldn't compare say iOS App Store revenue globally with HarmonyOS App store revenue in China as the former is dominated by games unless one is developing a game targeted at a global audience).
Also FYI Apple does take the competition seriously: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-reveals-app-store-revenue-093000841.html
ScanTheNavian
macrumors 6502
The only thing that could excite me with iPhones now is if Apple took inspiration from Windows Phone and displayed MacOS when you connected one to an external display. I think computing is slowly moving that way, like we see with Samsung Dex. But it would cannibalize a lot of their other product lines so it won't happen in decades if ever.
Abazigal
Contributor
I feel this also vastly misunderstands how people generally use their phones. They are not docking their smartphones to external monitors at their workstations. They are typing away on laptops issued by their employers, with their phones next to them.
As it is, I am already not using stage manager as much as I thought I would, and I feel it had generally been a waste of time and resources for Apple.