Apple no longer in Top 5 in China
Chinese market

Chinese gamers seem not so fond of iPhones, as the Cupertino company drops out of the Top 5 smartphone manufacturers in the country.

Apple iPhones have already become the most popular smartphones on the planet. But there’s one country, where the iPhone casino gambling seems to be less popular than everywhere else. You guessed it right, it’s China.

In Q3 of this year Apple has come down from the Top 5 of smartphone manufacturers in China. It’s hard to tell right now if iPhone mobile gambling fans had something to do with this, but one fact is certain: the Chinese are not fans of iOS anymore.

According to Canalys research company, the Chinese mobile market has just overtaken the US in terms of sales. So Apple can’t really afford to lose even the smallest piece of such a juicy pie.

As for the leaders: it’s Samsung with its Android casino tools holding fourteen percent of the market, while Lenovo, the local brand, is very close at thirteen percent of the smartphone market. To make things even worse for Apple, Samsung has just won the “World’s best-selling smartphone in Q3 2012” with its Galaxy S III.

Samsung managed to sell 18 million Galaxy S III smartphones. Apple is close with 16.2 million iPhone 4S sales, but we have to consider the decrease in sales attributed to the iPhone 5 launch anticipation in Q3.

Interestingly enough, the third place on the Top 5 smartphone manufacturers in China is held by a local brand Yulong, mainly thanks to extensive partnerships with all the Chinese wireless carriers. Top five is concluded by ZTE and Huawei and all the last three companies command a 10 percent market share each. Apple is in the sixth spot with 8 percent.

Overall in Q3 roughly 50 million smartphones were shipped on the Chinese market, which means over one third of the total devices shipped in the whole world. However, the rapid growth of the market is mainly explained by the cheap smartphones ($70-120 region), and considering the $713 price tag for the iPhone 4S, it’s not really a competition.