China smartphone market, 3Q 2023

Due to the absence of major promotional campaigns in the third quarter, and some vendors, aiming to clear excess inventory from the previous quarter, adopted a conservative approach in shipping to control the rise in channel inventory, smartphone shipments to China went down slightly from a quarter ago, but up 5% on year in the third quarter of 2023.

However, there are signs indicating demand recovery in the Chinese market from the end of the third quarter, coupled with the promotional effects from the Single's Day shopping festival, China's smartphone shipments will likely experience double-digit growth in the fourth quarter.

In the third quarter of 2023, the top five smartphone vendors in the Chinese market were Oppo, Honor, Vivo, Huawei and Xiaomi. Compared with the previous quarter, the second and third places were interchanged, with Huawei taking the fourth place and Apple falling out of the top five ranking. The combined market share of the top five brands in the quarter was 85.1%.