Apple slips, Android big winner in China during Q2

(Credit: Canalys)

Google may have had its issues with China over the question of Internet censorship, but there's been no spillover in how the locals treat the company's mobile operating system.

A new report by Canalys finds that during the second quarter, Android was the operating system on 81 percent of smartphone shipments in China -- which accounted for some 27 percent of global smartphone shipments overall. (By comparison, the United States accounted for 16 percent.)

Globally, Android continued to surge and passed 100 million quarterly smartphone shipments for the first time, according to the report. More than 42 million smartphones got shipped in China out of the total 158 million shipped worldwide during the quarter, according to Canalys.

Samsung was the No. 1 smartphone vendor in China during the quarter, with a 17 percent share, followed by ZTE, Lenovo, and Huawei. Apple saw its shipments more than double year over year, but they were still down 37 percent compared with the first quarter of this year, leaving the company in fifth place.

Canalys analyst Chris Jones attributed the sharp drop-off to several factors. One was that Apple competes in a hardscrabble market where it is the most expensive brand. It also grapples with the existence of a flourishing gray market in smartphones where knockoffs are popular items.

He also noted that the change in seasonality for iPhone product d... [Read more]