Apple reclaims fifth place in China on new iPhone sales

Samsung extends its lead in the Chinese market in the past quarter ended in September with its market share growing to 21 percent from 14 percent. Local vendors Lenovo Group and Yulong Computer took 13 percent and 11 percent respectively, Sina Tech reported on Wednesday, citing figures from Canalys.

Huawei Technologies took the fourth spot with market share of 9 percent, while Apple's edged out Xiaomi and ZTE in the list, which jumped from seventh spot in the second quarter of 2013 to the fifth place on the back of its new iPhones sales, which now corners 6 percent of the Chinese market, said the report.

Apple's rank hike shows "the success of its strategy to finally prioritize China as one of the initial launch countries for its new products," Canalys said in a report published the same day. In its latest iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c sales, China, for the first time, was listed in the first wave of countries to launch Apple's new smartphones.

Nicole Peng, analyst at Canalys, indicated that iPhone's shipments in grew 32 percent during Q3, which helped boost its market share to approximately 6 percent in China. This was a jump from Q2's seventh place and 5 percent market share.

But Peng pointed out Apple will be facing serious challenges to further boost its market shares in China. In the third quarter of 2012, Apple has fetched 8 percent of the smartphone market in China. The latest data showed that the technology giant has lost shares in China over the year, according to another Chinese report.

However, Apple's pricing strategy for both iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c showed that it only targets the high-end market, which might not help bring in fast sales growth, but will ensure more stable profit margins for the company, according to c114.net.