“Apple seems to be gaining some ground in the world’s largest smartphone market,” Juro Osawa and Paul Mozur report for The Wall Street Journal. “In China, Apple’s market share rose slightly in the fourth quarter of last year, helped by strong demand for its new iPhone 5S, the latest market research data shows. According to research firm IDC, Apple’s market share in mainland China rose to 7% in the quarter from 6% in the third quarter. ”
“The fourth quarter was the first full quarter after Apple launched its iPhone 5S and 5C in China in late September, on the same day the new phones came out in the U.S. and a host of other markets. In the past, iPhones went on sale in China months after they were launched in the U.S.,” Osawa and Mozur report. “With its 7% share, Apple was the fifth-largest smartphone vendor in China. Samsung, which sells smartphones at various price points from high-end to low-end, held onto its No. 1 position in China with a 19% share in the fourth quarter, followed by Lenovo Group with a 13% share. Coolpad — the smartphone brand of Shenzhen-based Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific — and Huawei Technologies came third and fourth, taking up 11% and 10% respectively.”
Read more in the full article here.
“Inching up?” I believe that going from 6% to 7% is close to a 17% gain. Keep that up and it will really be noticeable!
It’s from IDC, they hate to admit Apple sales are going up.
And what about profit share? As always, market share in isolation is meaningless when the market is so broad as to included categories that are effectively unrelated in all but name.
Remember when SJ said they would be happy with just 1-3% of the market? Something like that.