Canalys: China's smartphone market shipments to reach 285 million units in 2024, up 4% year-on-year

The 2024 Chinese mobile phone market shipment report is finally out. A recent report released by market research firm Canalys shows that the Chinese mainland smartphone market will ship a total of 285 million mobile phones in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 4%.

Judging from the data, this is the first time that the Chinese mainland mobile phone market has returned to positive growth after entering a downward trend in 2022. It also allowed domestic mobile phone manufacturers to finally breathe a sigh of relief. With the implementation of the national mobile phone subsidy policy in 2025, it is estimated that it will further promote the increase in mobile phone shipments.

Huawei leads the growth, while Apple continues to plummet

According to data from Canalys, Huawei leads the entire Chinese mainland smartphone market with an annual growth rate of 37% , and is the only brand among the top five brands with an annual growth rate of more than 15%. In addition to its extremely high growth rate, Huawei's market share has also jumped to second place, accounting for 16% of the market share with 46 million mobile phone shipments.

However, the best performing mobile phone brand in 2024 is vivo. Although its annual growth rate is not as good as Huawei, its 11% data is still an excellent performance. It is also the only brand with positive growth among the top five brands except Huawei. At the same time, it occupies 17% of the market share with 49.3 million units shipped.

In addition to vivo and Huawei, Apple, OPPO and Honor, which are also on the list, are not so lucky. Although Apple's shipments still rank third, its shipments fell by 17% , and it almost watched Huawei surpass it and take the second place.

To be honest, Apple's performance this year is indeed not good. There have been declines to varying degrees in the first, second and third quarters, and it even fell out of the top five in the shipment list. Even in the fourth quarter, which was highly anticipated, the release of the iPhone 16 series did not bring much benefit to Apple's market performance. On the contrary, due to the early release of a number of Android flagships and Huawei's Mate 70 series, iPhone shipments in the fourth quarter in the Chinese market plummeted by 25%.

In contrast, Huawei's shipments in the fourth quarter increased by 24%. Most models of the Mate 70 series are still out of stock. Only some colors of the standard version are in stock. A few Pro and above versions support pre-orders and will be shipped within 7-30 days. The iPhone 16 series has generally reduced its price by 1,000 yuan. Through channels such as Pinduoduo's 10 billion yuan subsidy, the standard version has been reduced by 1,300 yuan, and it only costs 4,699 yuan.

To be honest, it is not that Xiao Lei deliberately criticized Apple, but Apple's market performance this year is really worrying. Although Apple has surpassed Samsung for two consecutive years to become the mobile phone brand with the highest shipments worldwide, from the data point of view, Apple's market share in 2024 decreased by 1% year-on-year, which is still significantly affected. Even so, Apple's shipments in the Chinese market still account for 15%.

Except for Apple, the shipments of OPPO and Honor both decreased by 3%, and their shipments were even very close, OPPO's shipments were 42.7 million units, and Honor's shipments were 42.2 million units, accounting for 15% of the shipments. Like Apple, it now seems that the three brands have formed the backbone of the Chinese mobile phone market, occupying 45% of the market share.

Judging from Huawei's growth rate, it is possible for it to surpass vivo and become the number one in terms of shipments in 2025. Huawei's return has obviously put a lot of pressure on other brands, and Apple, which has a serious overlap with Huawei's user groups, is the most serious. At present, Apple's most promising turnaround point is the iPhone 16E, which will be released this year. It is rumored that the iPhone 17 series will be overhauled, which may also bring new surprises.

Xiaomi falls out of the top five in the domestic mobile phone market?

After looking at the entire list, the most surprising thing is probably that Xiaomi is not on the list. After all, Apple’s plummeting shipments have historical preparations. In the four quarters of 2024, reports from many institutions showed that Apple’s performance in the Chinese market was not good.

But Xiaomi is different. After checking the reports of the past four quarters, Xiaomi has been in the top five most of the time and has achieved significant growth. Considering the hot sales of its digital flagship series, does this seem a bit wrong? In fact, this can be regarded as a kind of "Spring and Autumn style" because different institutions will modify the statistical individuals according to their needs when compiling statistics.

For example, when counting mobile phone shipments, brands are generally considered as individuals. Some organizations will combine the main and sub-brands, while others will calculate separately. In addition, there are statistical methods that distinguish based on the system. Take OPPO and OnePlus as examples. Both brands’ mobile phones use ColorOS, so they will be combined. Although realme also has a certain relationship with OPPO, it will be excluded from OPPO’s market share because it uses realme UI.

Therefore, whenever similar reports are released, you may find that there are significant differences in data between different institutions, which is actually caused by differences in statistical individuals. In the Canalys list, Xiaomi and Redmi are most likely calculated separately. Considering that the sales of both are not low, the Xiaomi system, which is diluted into two individuals, naturally drops out of the top five rankings.

However, in my opinion, this is not the whole reason. Xiaomi's increasingly distinct product lines have also made Xiaomi and Redmi have obvious differences in user groups. Moreover, Xiaomi and Redmi now tend to take the boutique route. Simply put, a small number of models are used to cover different user groups and price segments. Taking 2024 as an example, Xiaomi actually only released five different series of mobile phone products: Xiaomi 14 Ultra, Xiaomi Civi 4 Pro, Xiaomi MIX Fold 4, Xiaomi MIX Flip and Xiaomi 15 series.

Among them, the Civi series, which focuses on the mid-range market, has only launched the Pro version, and the standard version has disappeared. Xiaomi has completely given up the market of 2,500 yuan and below, leaving it all to Redmi. As we all know, although the average selling price of mobile phones has been on an upward trend in the past two years, the market of 2,000 yuan and below still occupies a large share, and the performance in shipments is very obvious.

If Xiaomi cannot achieve the strong ecological dominance of Apple, it will be difficult for it to sit in the top five by itself. After all, both OPPO and vivo will continue to use the strategy of launching a large number of mobile phones in 2024. Although this also leads to excessive overlap in product configuration and price, for offline consumers, a more attractive appearance and different emphasis on some functions are enough to influence their purchasing decisions.

In order to do well in the offline market, in addition to opening more stores, it is also very important to provide consumers with more price ranges and more types of products, and to attract users' attention by releasing new products from time to time. In this regard, Xiaomi obviously still has a lot to learn from OPPO and vivo.

China's mobile phone market will undergo a rapid reshuffle in 2025

In my opinion, the mobile phone market in 2025 will be much more exciting than in 2024. Huawei completed the product update of all its mobile phone series on sale in 2024, and all of them were replaced with Kirin chips. This is a milestone event, and in the process of Huawei reorganizing its product line, it has proved with sales that users still have enough dependence and support for Huawei's brand and ecosystem.

After determining its basic status, Huawei's product line changes and updates in 2025 may be more radical and frequent than in 2024. For other brands, this also means huge pressure and competition, especially in the mid-range and entry-level price segments. Huawei's competitiveness is increasing day by day, and the Nova series that once gave many manufacturers a headache has returned to the attention of consumers again.

As for the share of the high-end market, Huawei has a greater advantage according to another statistical report. Globally, if only the sales of mobile phones above $600 are counted, Huawei ranks third in the world with an 8% share, second only to Samsung and Apple. If the Chinese mainland market is broken down, Huawei's share is as high as 33%, and Apple ranks first with a share of 52%.

Although Apple still accounts for more than half of the market share above $600, its share has dropped by 5% year-on-year, while Huawei's share has increased by 34%. Considering that Huawei's market share base is already very high, it is still surprising that it can maintain such a growth trend. In contrast, Honor and Xiaomi, which ranked third and fourth, only took 5% and 3% of the market share, far lower than Apple and Huawei.

For other brands, the challenge brought by Huawei is all-round, not limited to a certain market or price range, which also requires other brands to be fully prepared to deal with Huawei's attack. In this case, it may be a good choice to come up with better products and provide users with more segmented product lines, using differentiation to accurately segment users and improve user experience.

At the same time, overseas manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung may also take action. Whether it is the iPhone 16E or iPhone 17, as well as the upcoming Samsung S25 series, they will bring new impacts and further provoke the "sensitive" nerves of various manufacturers.

In 2025, the mobile phone market will definitely be very lively, let us wait and see.

Zilei Technology