Shipments of smartphones in the China market declined 8.8% sequentially to 78.2 million units in the third quarter of 2013, according to data compiled by Digitimes Research.
The top-four smartphone vendors in China - ZTE, Huawei, Coolpad and Lenovo - saw their respective shipments slip in a range from 800,000 to 2.6 million units in the third quarter as the vendors were forced to delay the launch of new models amid stockpiles of entry-level models.
However, smartphone sales in China are expected to rebound to over 100 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, driven by an increasing number of smartphone subscribers and falling smartphone prices.
The number of 3G service subscribers with China Mobile increased by a rate of 10 million in August alone, while prices of dual- and quad-core smartphones and display sizes of 4.5-5-inch have fallen to the sub-CNY1,000 (US$164) segment, Digitimes Research indicated.
For non-local brands, Samsung Electronics shipped 16 million smartphones in China in the third quarter, while HTC saw its shipments drop 34.2% sequentially to 1.5 million units during the period.
Apple is expected to see shipments of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in China reach 30 million units in the fourth quarter after the two models were launched in mid-September, Digitimes Research estimated.