Apple's market share among urbanized Chinese fell for the first time since 2014 in February as the premium brand faced challenges from domestic brands, a research firm's survey showed yesterday.

The iconic US brand saw its smartphone market share fall 3.2 percentage points year on year in urban China by February, Kantar said, adding that this was due to Apple’s dominance among Chinese urban consumers being challenged by Huawei, Meizu and Oppo.

By February, Huawei was able to recapture the top spot in the list of smartphone brands with 24.4 percent of smartphones sold in urban China, just ahead of Apple’s 22.2 percent, according to Kantar.

Up-and-coming brands Meizu and Oppo both grew strongly year on year, with each capturing around 6 percent of smartphone sales.

Apple also suffered a 3.2-percentage-point decline in market share for its iOS operating system between February 2015 and February this year in China’s urban regions. Android increased its share in urban China to 76.4 percent from 73 percent in the same period a year ago, Kantar said.

Kantar conducted the survey in 375 cities in the country.

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