iPhone 15 Pro Max edges out the Mate 60 Pro to become China’s top-selling phone in October

Given that China is the largest smartphone market in the world (followed by India and the United States), and given that much of the innovation we see in the industry comes from Chinese brands , it might be a good idea to look at the top five. selling smartphones in the region. First of all, we should point out that the surprise August unveiling of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro powered by the home-made 7nm Kirin 9000s 5G SoC helped Huawei deliver 90% year-on-year growth in October.

For October, the last month Search for counterpoint released this data, the best-selling phone in China must have been one of the Mate 60 series models, right? BZZT. Oh, so close. In fact, with a leading 5% market share in China's smartphone market, the best-selling smartphone in the country that month was the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Ok, so the remaining four phones in the top five for the month had to include three or four Mate 60 series handsets (Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro, Mate 60 Pro+, Mate 60RS), right?

BZZT (boy, is that buzzer annoying). In fact, three of the five best-selling phones in China in October were iPhone models, with the iPhone 15 Pro taking third place, accounting for 4% of the Chinese smartphone market pie. And with 3% market share, the iPhone 15 finished in fifth place.

The Huawei Mate 60 Pro therefore had to finish second, just behind the iPhone 15 Pro Max with a share of 4%. DING, DING, DING! “Correctamundo”, as the Fonz (Google) said. And Huawei's former sub-brand Honor took the remaining spot in the top five, with the Honor X50 finishing fourth with a 3% market share in the country in October.

Huawei was close to achieving a publicly announced goal of becoming the world's largest smartphone maker when the United States, citing national security concerns, imposed sanctions on the company in 2019, preventing it from accessing to its American supply chain. The following year (on the same exact date!), the United States banned all foundries using American technology from shipping cutting-edge chips to Huawei. Shipments plunged to 35 million in 2021, but are expected to return to triple digits this year with up to 100 million units expected to be delivered.