Apple Was Fastest Growing Smartphone Brand in China in Second Quarter, Buoyed By Strong iPhone SE Sales
Apple's iPhone was the fastest-growing smartphone brand in China in the second quarter, according to data published by Counterpoint Research.
Bouncing back from the decline in the market in Q1 following the global health crisis, Apple grew 32% year on year thanks to the continued popularity of its iPhone 11 lineup and heavy discounting at an annual shopping festival that Apple doesn't usually participate in.
This year's new iPhone SE also entered into the top three best-selling iPhones in the quarter, mirroring the more affordable device's performance in the United States in the same quarter.
Apple's reversal of fortunes in China are particularly impressive given that it saw an almost 60 percent slump in iPhone sales in February compared to the previous year, shifting fewer than 500,000 handsets across the country.
The surge in iPhone sales in Q2 comes amid a 17% year-on-year decline in overall smartphone sales in China. In addition, one third of total smartphone sales during the quarter were 5G devices, which is the highest adoption of 5G in the world and bodes well for Apple's 5G "iPhone 12" lineup, expected this fall.
Popular Stories
Apple gained ground in India, Latin America, and Europe even as all three markets contracted, according to a new series of Counterpoint Research reports.
Between late March and the beginning of August, Indian smartphone sales ran 14% behind the equivalent stretch of 2025, and the market slipped for three straight weeks once major promotions in July had finished. Apple outperformed every...
Apple briefly published a support guide in China explaining how Mac users can connect Alibaba's Qwen AI to Siri and Writing Tools, before pulling it entirely less than a day later.
Reuters first spotted the Chinese-language guide on Apple's support site on August 8, which explained how eligible Mac users in mainland China could connect Qwen, Alibaba's family of generative AI models, to Siri...
Reuters reports that Apple has trained its own large language model for the China market, rather than relying on a third-party model to power its Apple Intelligence features in the country.
The LLM has been developed with the help of Alibaba, according to the report's sources. The development marks a break from Apple's previous strategy of relying on domestic models to bring generative AI to ...
