A new report from Counterpoint Research shows Apple offsetting China’s smartphone slowdown thanks to the iPhone 17 line, and topping the market in the last quarter of 2025. Here are the details.

Apple lands in second place for 2025 China smartphone shipments

As 9to5Mac readers know, Apple managed to reverse a years-long iPhone sales slump in China last year, with the iPhone outperforming the broader market in just about every quarter and key shopping periods like Singles’ Day.

Now, Counterpoint Research is out with a new report showing that while smartphone shipments slipped 1.6% in China during the last quarter of 2025, Apple’s shipments rose 28% compared to Q4 2024.

This, in turn, allowed Apple to lead the Chinese smartphone market with a 21.8% share, up from 16.8% in Q4 2024, when it landed behind Chinese manufacturer vivo.

From the report:

Apple led China’s smartphone market in Q4 with a 22% share, driven by strong traction for the iPhone 17 series and an accelerated supply ramp. The Pro series, with its distinctive new camera design, and the base variants, with double the storage of last year’s equivalent but at the same price, have all seen a strong market response. Sales for the iPhone Air, which saw a delayed launch, came in at a low single-digit share. Senior Analyst Ivan Lam said, “The late launch and trade-offs between thinness and the feature set resulted in a slow start for the iPhone Air. But it’s a significant product, not only as an exploration into ultra-thin design, but also when considering the longer-term structural implications for the domestic market for eSIM smartphones.”

In the report, Counterpoint Research also shared shipment share and growth figures for the whole year. Compared with 2024, Apple saw a 7.5% increase, while Xiaomi came in second with 4.3% growth.

This put Apple in second place with 16.7%, just behind Huawei at 16.9% and slightly ahead of vivo (which ranked second last year) at 16.4%.

Source: 9to5mac