Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has reportedly crashed all hopes of Samsung to establish a stronghold in the Chinese market. China has become a major contributor to the sales of the iPhone in April 2015 and company recorded a 62% rise in the shipment of the iPhone 6 smartphones to China in Q12015. The results are better than compared to Samsung that saw a 53% dip in shipments from the same time last year. Even domestic players like Xiaomi and Huawei lagged behind with a growth of 42% and 39%, respectively in Q12015.
Apple registered revenue of $16.8 million from China, leaving the U.S. markets. According to CEO, Tim Cook, Apple had an unbelievable quarter and the bulk of sales are from China. It was even better than the U.S., which has been the top iPhone seller till now.
Smartphone Market Goes Down
The smartphone market of China seems to have gone down with a 8% dip last quarter as the market has become overcrowded with too many devices, according to a report by IDC. Analysts have been cautioning against this situation for long on the shifting dynamics of the buyers. Over 98.8 million smartphones were shipped into China in Q12015. The number has dropped considerably over the last six years.
Change in Strategy Required
Kitty Fok from IDC said that everyone thinks that China is an emerging market, but the country has the largest sale of smartphones, just like the markets in U.S., U.K., Australia and Japan.
Smartphone companies need to focus on changing their marketing strategy on convincing customers to let go of their old smartphones and buy new ones. This is what they needed to do if they want to grow as the first-time-buyer population is not much. The competition has become tough as growing in a saturated market is not an easy game.
Apple was nonetheless a top preference for the Chinese buyers and the iPhone 6 was a rage in the market. With Samsung ready to launch the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, it remains to be seen whether China will continue to dominate or pave the way for the others. IDC has estimated a muted growth of the smartphone market in China for FY2015.
