According to the latest data from Counterpoint Research, China's smartphone sales fell 14% year-on-year in 2022, the fifth consecutive year of decline, reaching the lowest level in ten years, with a 15% decline in the fourth quarter.

The agency pointed out that although affected by the slowdown of smartphone sales in the Chinese market, all mobile phone brands such as Apple, Vivo, OPPO, and Xiaomi will have a decline in sales to varying degrees in 2022, the decline of Apple is significantly smaller than that of other brands.

In the whole year of 2022, Apple's market share in China was 18%, compared with 16% in 2021. At the same time, in the market share of mobile phone brands in 2022, the market share of major Android mainframe manufacturers fell sharply year-on-year, due to the decline in demand caused by economic uncertainty. OPPO decreased by 27%, Vivo by 23% and Xiaomi by 19%. It is worth noting that Glory brand rose significantly, with a year-on-year increase of 38%. However, this growth needs to refer to factors with a low base in 2021.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, China's smartphone sales fell by 15% year on year, and the sales in all quarters of last year achieved a double-digit year-on-year decline. Apple is still the smallest decline in the quarter, even reaching the highest quarterly share in history, accounting for 23.7% of the Chinese market, slightly higher than the 23% in the same period last year.

Vivo followed closely, with its fourth quarter sales ranking second, accounting for 17.2%. On the other hand, Vivo has maintained its position as the annual sales champion, with its market share shrinking from 21.5% in 2021 to 19.2%. In addition, OPPO ranked third, accounting for 16% of the sales volume in the fourth quarter of last year and 17.5% of the market share in the whole year, which also contracted from 20.7% in 2021. However, Xiaomi, which ranked fifth in sales in the fourth quarter and the whole year, suffered from market share reduction.