China's mobile phone sales report for 2021 is released

On January 26, the third-party research organization CounterPoint released a report on the Chinese mobile phone market, showing that in the fourth quarter of 2021, Apple surpassed vivo and took 23% of the market share, ranking first. This is also the first time that Apple has won the sales champion in the Chinese market six years after the peak of iPhone 6.

In the fourth quarter, OPPO (including OnePlus but excluding realme, the same below), Honor and Xiaomi ranked third to fifth, with market shares of 17%, 15% and 13% respectively. Huawei was squeezed out of the top five and ranked sixth with 7%.

In 2021, vivo is still the sales champion in the Chinese mobile phone market, accounting for 22% of the market. OPPO, Apple, Xiaomi, Honor, and Huawei accounted for 21%, 16%, 15%, 10%, and 10% respectively. It is worth mentioning that the sales of Honor and Huawei in 2021 were basically the same after the separation.

Compared with 2020, Huawei is the manufacturer with the largest sales decline, down 68% year-on-year, because there has been no effective solution to its chip inventory. From the sales comparison, Huawei's fall has benefited Xiaomi and Apple the most. In 2021, Xiaomi and Apple's sales increased by 40% and 47% respectively. In addition, with further efforts in the Chinese market, realme's sales increased by 379% year-on-year.

If compared with the third quarter, it will be found that the iPhone 13 released by Apple in September 2021 has achieved considerable success, indirectly helping Apple to increase its share from 13% in the third quarter to 23% in the fourth quarter, and to some extent squeezing out the market of OV.

From the perspective of the overall market, sales in China's smartphone market are still declining. Sales in the fourth quarter of 2021 fell 2% month-on-month and 9% year-on-year. Full-year sales also fell for the fourth consecutive year, down 2% year-on-year in 2021.