By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
Apple sold more smartphones in China than any other company in the final quarter of 2014, according to a report released Tuesday by analytics firm Canalys.
This is the first time the American company has conquered the Chinese market.
After Apple, homegrown tech manufacturer Xiaomi shipped the second most smartphones in China, followed by South Korea’s Samsung and then Huawei, another China native.
Canalys measured each company’s success by counting the total amount of units shipped.
Xiaomi and Huawei have steadily grown in prominence throughout the world, especially in Asia. Canalys even claimed Xiaomi led the Chinese smartphone market in the second quarter of last year, but in the end the pair did not have an appropriate answer for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
“While Chinese smartphone vendors are quickly gaining ground internationally, Apple has turned the tables on them in their home market,” the Canalys team wrote in a press release.
Apple was able to outsell the competition, Canalys believes, because of a series of fortunate factors.
“The company is finally riding the large screen and LTE trends in China, which have been vital to its success,” the team continued, “along with a well-timed launch and a clampdown on grey exports of its products out of Hong Kong.”
Even more impressive, Apple’s iPhones cost almost twice as much as similar offerings from device-makers such as Xiaomi, yet the California company was still able to win over the Chinese market.
Another takeaway from Tuesday’s report is Samsung’s struggle to stay in the Chinese race. While the South Koreans popularized the large-screen “phablet” style that the latest iPhones mimic, the company limped out of 2014 in third place. The tech giant even embarrassingly ceded to Xiaomi, which has manufactured smartphones only since 2011.
During its earnings report released Tuesday, Apple claimed a 29.5 percent rise in revenue for the last quarter of 2014 powered by the sales of 74.5 million iPhones.
Apple claimed that revenue from the quarter, which ended Dec. 27, hit $74.6 billion compared to the $57.6 billion earned during the last quarter of 2013.
www.aa.com.tr/en
