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Surprisingly, despite Huawei’s dominance in the overall market in China, it has failed so far to be the number one seller in 2026. Instead, Apple has made what Wired described as a “comeback” in China, after a few years of seeing users drift toward other Chinese phone brands like Xiaomi, Honor, and Oppo. It’s been reasoned that Apple’s status as a brand plays a bigger part in its current sales than the futuristic technologies that some of the Chinese brands are providing.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max is the top seller in China as of the second quarter of 2026, according to Counterpoint, a research firm. In Q1, Apple was on the upswing, but Huawei still led with the bigger overall share. Now in Q2, the rankings are currently looking like this for phones sold in the time 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 has been warmly received in the last year, and buyers in China seem to love iPhone 17 Pro models in particular for their Cosmic Orange colorway. It’ll be interesting to see how China reacts to the launch of the foldable iPhone, and whether it manages to outsell the iPhone 18 Pro in any capacity.
The iPhone is China’s biggest seller right now
Despite the iPhone 17 lineup’s success, as of Q2 2026, Huawei is still the dominant brand in China overall. Between Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, Huawei has gone from 14% to 23% market share, while Apple, despite selling the most phones in Q2 2026, has shrunk in its share from 22% to 18% in the same time period. This information, again from Counterpoint, is based on shipments to China. Worldwide, as of Q2 2026, Apple holds 20% of the global share of phones on the market, beaten by Samsung at 24%.
Falling shipments and cut targets are the current news out of China’s phone market, however. Nothing can escape the looming threat of RAMageddon, as even phone processors are seeing price increases while shortages induced by AI data centers continue. Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo were reported to have cut shipment targets by up to 30% recently.
Xiaomi is now expecting to ship only 90 million phones, down from 135 million estimated 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 isn’t expecting the same number of shipments as 2025, which was around 71 million, reports Nikkei Asia. Despite some fabricators in China managing to start producing more RAM, it has also been priced at ludicrous prices and will take years to flood the market.
