Taipei, Jan. 24 (CNA) Apple Inc., the U.S. consumer electronics giant, retained its title as the top smartphone brand in Taiwan in December following the launch of the premium iPhone X a month earlier, according to industrial sources.
A total of 614,000 smartphones were sold in Taiwan during the month, down 35,000 units from a month earlier and also down 52,000 units from a year earlier, Taiwan-based tech website ePrice cited the sources as saying Wednesday.
According to the sources, Apple accounted for 30.6 percent of the total sales volume for the month. While Apple remained the top seller in Taiwan, enthusiasm toward the iPhone X, which went on sale Nov. 3 in the local market, was reduced to some extent in December, the sources said.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics Corp. came in second, with a 17.5 percent market share, ahead of Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc., which has aggressively penetrated the smartphone market, with 9.2 percent, China-based OPPO with 8.6 percent and Japan's Sony Corp. with 7.5 percent.
HTC Corp., also a Taiwanese brand, was in sixth position with a 7.4 percent share, followed by Finland-headquartered Nokia Corp. with 3.2 percent, China's Huawei Technologies Co. with 2.7 percent, China's Xiaomi with 2.4 percent, and Taiwan Mobile Co., a local telecom operator, with 1.4 percent, the sources said.
In terms of sales value, Apple remained top of the list after taking a 64.1 percent share of the total sales as the signature iPhone X carries the highest price tag among all of the models in the iPhone series, the sources said.
Apple's sales value left other competitors far behind, with Samsung taking second position with a 12.3 percent share, OPPO with 5.3 percent, and Sony and HTC with 4.6 percent each, the sources added.
In terms of individual models, the iPhone X 256GB was the biggest seller, followed by the iPhone X 64GB and the iPhone 8 Plus 64GB. The three models are the latest iPhones, unveiled by Apple in September 2017.
On the back of its relatively affordable price, the OPPO R11s took fourth position in December, ahead of Samsung's Galaxy J7 Prime, the Galaxy Note 8, the iPhone 8 64GB, the iPhone 8 Plus 256GB, the Galaxy J7 Pro and Asustek's ZenFone 4 Max, the sources said.
The Nokia 3310 3G took 11th position, taking advantage of a low price tag of less than NT$2,000 (US$68.26), the sources added.
(By Jiang Ming-yan and Frances Huang)
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