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First-time fall for China smartphone sales

By Reuters
US, 21 Aug 2015

Smartphone sales in China, the world's biggest smartphone market, fell in the second quarter for the first time, market research firm Gartner said yesterday.

Sales of smartphones in China declined 4% in the quarter, the first year-over-year fall, the company said. "China has reached saturation - its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

The country accounted for about 30% of total smartphone sales during the second quarter, according to the report.

Gartner also said worldwide smartphone sales grew at the slowest pace since 2013.

Still, Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone sales market rose to 14.6% from 12.2% a year earlier. Total iPhone sales in China soared 68% to 11.9 million units, Gartner said.

Apple's big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which shattered iPhone sales records when they were launched, are about 11 months old.

Rival Samsung's share of the global smartphone market fell to 21.9% from 26.2%, Gartner said.

Despite the new S6 models, which it released in April, Samsung's premium phones continued to be challenged by Apple's large-screen iPhones, the report said.

Huawei, the fourth-largest smartphone-maker globally, recorded the highest sales growth rate of 46.3% due to strong international sales and 4G smartphone sales in China.

Apple's shares were down about 2% in early trading on the Nasdaq.

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