Smartphone sales in China fell 10% year-on-year to 88.7 million units during the second quarter, but increasing demand for high-end phones pushed the total value of sales up 17%, according to GfK.
Strong demand for smartphones priced at $500 and above pushed the market's total value to $26.8 billion, the research firm said.
Demand for high-end phones surged 49% year-on-year, with the segment growing to account for 17% of the market, up from 10% a year earlier. GfK forecasts high-end demand to grow 28% this year.
In developed APAC – a category GfK defines as consisting of Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – unit sales increased 6% year-on-year to 14.7 million units. The total value of sales was up 10% to $8.3 billion. GfK expects unit demand to grow 1% in 2015.
“Weak macroeconomic trends will continue across a number of major countries such as Brazil, Russia and China, but recoveries when they come are often faster than expected especially for tech sectors,” GfK director of trends and forecasting Kevin Walsh commented.
“In addition, we are still a long way from saturation in emerging markets while adjacent industries to smartphones fuel the next round of growth, generally complementing and in some cases cannibalizing smartphone growth."