Apple tops Taiwan's smartphone sales for 4th straight month

Taipei, Jan. 24 (CNA) Apple Inc. ranked as the best smartphone vendor in Taiwan in terms of both sales volume and value last December, holding that spot for the fourth consecutive month, following the launch of its latest iPhone models, industry sources said Tuesday.

In terms of individual smartphone sales, Apple's 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus 128 GB, unveiled in September 2016, continued to top the sales rankings in Taiwan in December, followed by the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 128GB, the sources said.

The ZenFone 3 ZE552KL, launched by Taiwan-based PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc. amid efforts to explore the smartphone market, ranked as the third bestselling model overall in December and was the top selling Android phone, the sources added.

According to the sources, a total of 667,000 smartphones were sold in Taiwan in December, up 5.4 percent from a month earlier.

Apple remained the top vendor last December, accounting for 24.3 percent of the total sales volume in Taiwan, although its share was lower than its 28.4 percent November, 28.2 percent in October, and 29 percent in September, the sources said.

The sales figures indicated a decline in buying interest despite the launch of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in the Taiwan market in September, according to the sources.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. accounted for 18.5 percent of the smartphone sales volume in Taiwan last December, ranking as the second biggest vendor, followed by Asustek (16.2 percent), Taiwan's smartphone brand HTC Corp. (11.5 percent), and Japan's Sony Corp. (8.5 percent), the sources said.

In terms of smartphone sales value, Apple took a 57.7 percent share of the total in December, dwarfing the second largest vendor Samsung (10.2 percent), mainly because of the latest iPhones’high price tags, the sources said.

Sony was third with an 8.9 percent share, followed by Asustek with 7.6 percent and HTC with 6.3 percent, the sources said.

As for sales of individual phone models, Samsung's Galaxy J7 (2016) was fourth, followed by its Galaxy J2 Prime, Sony's flagship Xperia XZ, the HTC Desire 728, Asustek's ZenFone 3 ZE520KL, Taiwan Mobile's Amazing X3S and the Galaxy J7 Prime.

Except for the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone 7 and the Xperia XZ, the top-10 bestsellers in December were low- to mid-range models that sold well because consumers were able to get good deals on them at the telcom companies, the sources said.

(By Esme Jiang and Frances Huang)enditem/pc