Samsung leads Apple, Lenovo in China smartphone market

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An interesting report on what smartphone brand is leading in China leaked over the weekend. It’s interesting because most market updates are distributed far and wide. Instead, the South Korean news agency Yonhap published a private report indicating that country’s Samsung leads Apple and others in the huge mobile marketplace.

According to the Strategy Analytics report obtained by Yonhap, Samsung is the number one brand in China with 17.7 percent of the market during 2012. Intriguingly, Samsung’s rise coincides with a plummeting Nokia, which previously held the top spot…

The Next Web passes along a Yonhap news report citing Strategy Analytics: the 30 million Android-based Samsung smart devices sold last year in China is a significant increase over 2011, when the company sold 10.9 million units, giving it 12.4 percent of the smartphone market.

The firm should thank Nokia’s double-digit slide to 3.7 percent of the market, down from 29.9 percent in 2011.

The drop in market share sent Nokia from first place to seventh.

China’s Lenovo took second place, grabbing 13.2 percent of the nation’s smartphone market, for a four percent increase. Apple landed in third with eleven percent, followed by Huawei and home-grown Coolpad.

Observers see Samsung’s rise largely the result of Android’s domination of smartphone sales in China.

According to Strategy Analytics, Google’s mobile software and its offshoots owned 86 percent of the market during the fourth quarter of 2012. When Apple’s twelve percent is added, the two hold a 98 percent vice grip on smartphone sales in the world’s largest mobile landscape.

The same research firm recently reported that the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S each outsold Samsung’s Galaxy S III during the all-important 2012 holiday quarter.