Slowing Growth for Apple iOS in China

Smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech illustrates that, for the three months ending January 2016, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS continued to grow share in urban China. However, the rate of that growth was the slowest since late 2014.
According to the press release:

Apple also remained the most popular brand, capturing 25% of smartphone sales.
“Looking at the three months individually, January was the weakest month for Apple in China as more price-sensitive consumers might have been waiting to see what promotions Chinese New Year would bring in early February,” said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “In the rest of the world, smartphone platform dynamics remained pretty stable period-over-period, with no surprises.”
“In the EU5, Huawei remained the second strongest brand in the Android ecosystem, growing to 14% in the three months ending January 2016, up from 5% in the same period in 2014,” said Dominic Sunnebo, business unit director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. “In Great Britain and France, Huawei doubled its share over the past year, and climbed to number four in the brand ranking, while remaining number two in Italy, Spain and Germany.”
Europe’s big five markets (“EU5”) include Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
“In urban China, iOS share continued to grow year-over-year, albeit at a slower pace, as iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 were the best-selling smartphones in the region,” noted Tamsin Timpson, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia. “Huawei continued its momentum and is closing the gap with its nearest competitor, Apple, capturing 24.3% of sales. Xiaomi, which announced its Mi-5 at the recent Mobile World Congress, maintained a distant third, as it dropped 10.2 percentage points over the same period in 2015.”

Click here to read the full press release.