Samsung retains top spot in China's smartphone market

HONG KONG -- South Korea's Samsung Electronics remained the top smartphone vendor in China in August, selling some four million smartphones in the world's largest smartphone market, a report showed Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics sold 4.4 million smartphones in China last month, claiming 20.4 percent of the Chinese smartphone market, according to the report by the China Academy of Telecommunication Research under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The South Korean tech leader, however, saw both its market share and sales in China drop on-month in August. The sales figure was down 11 percent from 4.9 million units in July, while the market share was down 3.9 percentage points from 23.9 percent in the previous month.

Samsung Electronics's dominance in China's smartphone market has recently been eroded gradually by growing competition from China's local makers.

Chinese companies, such as ZTE Corp., Lenovo Group and Huawei Technologies Co., have started shipping more affordable smartphones for China's mass market.

The three Chinese major mobile phone makers collectively made up 14.3 percent of the overall Chinese smartphone market, compared to 11.8 percent the previous month.

Apple Inc., the maker of the popular iPhone, lifted its market share to 7.5 percent last month from 5.6 percent in July.

China's overall smartphone sales rose 4.6 percent on-month to 21.6 million units in August from 20.7 million in July. The August figure was a whopping 68.5 increase from a year earlier.

In the first eight months, a total of 149 million smartphones were sold in China, almost doubling from 77.45 million units sold in the same period last year.

China is expected to emerge as the largest smartphone market in the world this year.

Market researcher International Data Corp. said China will account for 26.5 percent of global smartphone shipments in 2012, followed by the United States with 17.8 percent. (PNA/Yonhap)