Surprisingly, despite Huawei’s dominance of the entire Chinese market, it has so far failed to become the number one seller in 2026. Instead, Apple has made what Wired described as a “comeback” to China, after a few years of seeing users drift to other Chinese phone brands like Xiaomi, Honor and Oppo. It has been argued that Apple’s status as a brand plays a more important role in its current sales than the futuristic technologies offered by some Chinese brands.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max is the best-selling product in China in the second quarter of 2026, according to Counterpoint, a research firm. In the first quarter, Apple was up, but Huawei remained in the lead with a larger overall share. Now in Q2, the rankings currently look like this for phones sold during the period:
- iPhone 17 Pro Max: 6%
- iPhone 17: 5%
- Huawei Enjoy 90 Pro Max: 4%
- iPhone 17 Pro: 4%
- Huawei Mate 80: 2%
The Apple iPhone 17 lineup was warmly received last year, and buyers in China seem to love the iPhone 17 Pro models especially for their Cosmic Orange colorway. It will be interesting to see how China reacts to the foldable iPhone launch and if it manages to surpass the iPhone 18 Pro in any capacity.
The iPhone is currently the biggest seller in China
Despite the success of the iPhone 17 range, in the second quarter of 2026, Huawei remains overall the dominant brand in China. Between Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, Huawei grew from 14% to 23% market share, while Apple, despite selling the most phones in Q2 2026, reduced its share from 22% to 18% during the same period. This information, again from Counterpoint, is based on shipments to China. Worldwide, in the second quarter of 2026, Apple had 20% of the global phone market share, beaten by Samsung at 24%.
However, declining shipments and reducing targets are the current news in the Chinese phone market. Nothing can escape the looming threat of RAMageddon, as even phone processors see their prices rise while AI data center-induced shortages continue. Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo reportedly recently reduced their shipping targets by up to 30%.
Xiaomi now expects to ship just 90 million phones, down from an estimated 135 million earlier this year, and down year-over-year from 170 million in 2025. Oppo and Vivo have followed suit, also expecting 90 million, and Honor is not expecting the same number of shipments as in 2025, which was around 71 million, Nikkei Asia reports. Although some Chinese manufacturers have managed to start producing more RAM, this too has been priced ridiculously and it will take years to flood the market.
