As Chinese phone market reportedly picks up steam, iPhone could be a standout winner
As Chinese phone market reportedly picks up steam, iPhone could be a standout winner
Publish Date: 2026-05-26 16:20:00
Source Domain: 9to5mac.com
The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) has released its latest report on mobile phone shipments in China, covering April as well as the first four months of 2026. Here are the details.
Apple likely to benefit from market-wide recovery
As spotted by Reuters, the CAICT has released updated numbers on phone shipments in the Chinese market.
The report compares year-over-year performance for the month of April, as well as the January through April period.
According to the CAICT, phone shipments in China reached 25.7 million units in April, a 2.8% increase year-over-year. Domestic brands saw the bulk of that, with 22.1 million shipped units (86.1% of total shipments), up 2.9% from April 2025, leaving just 3.59 million shipped units from foreign brands.
As Reuters pointed out, this means that “foreign-branded mobile phones in China for April, including Apple’s iPhones, were up 1.8% from the same month last year.”
When it comes to smartphones specifically, the report notes that shipments reached 25 million units in April, up 12.3% year-over-year, and 97.3% of total phone shipments.
Looking at the January through April period, China’s domestic phone market reached 86.5 million shipped units, down 8.6% year over year.
Smartphones saw a 5.5% year-over-year drop to 82 million units, and 94.8% of total shipped phones.
CAICT’s report also notes that the number of new models also declined, with 138 new mobile phone models between January and April, down 15.3% from a year earlier, 115 of which (or, 83.3%) were smartphones, down 0.9% year-over-year.
9to5Mac’s take
Today’s report largely aligns with what other sources, including Counterpoint Research, have been saying about the broader smartphone market amid growing pricing pressure caused by memory shortages across the industry.
Over the past few months, multiple analysts have noted that lower-end phones are more…
