Foreign-branded smartphone shipments to China, a category dominated by Apple, rose 1.8% year-on-year in April to 3.59 million handsets, according to Reuters calculations based on figures published by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the government-run research body that tracks domestic handset shipments.
The number is a meaningful deceleration. Foreign-brand shipments to China grew at a much faster clip through the first quarter, with one read of the CAICT data putting the figure at around 52% year-on-year for the period and Counterpoint Research recording iPhone shipments specifically of 13.1 million units in Q1, up from 9.2 million a year earlier, a rise of roughly 42%. April’s 1.8% rise is therefore the first month since late 2025 in which the foreign-brand category has settled close to flat.
The CAICT data does not break out individual vendors. Apple is by some distance the largest foreign brand in the Chinese smartphone market, and the foreign-brand line item is read by analysts as a useful, if imperfect, proxy for iPhone shipments specifically. Samsung, Sony and a handful of niche brands together account for the rest of the foreign-brand bucket.
The wider Chinese smartphone market is no longer growing. Total shipments fell 3.3% in the first quarter to roughly 69 million units, per IDC, with Huawei reclaiming the top spot for the first time in five years and Apple holding second place.
