Apple’s iOS continued to lose ground in urban China in Q2, with its share of the smartphone platform market dropping 1.8 points year-on-year to 17.9 per cent, according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

In Q1 Apple’s iOS share fell 5 points year-on-year to 21 per cent.

While the report didn’t mention Android, presumably its market share in China has increased at the same rate as Apple’s iOS decline.

Apple dropped to fourth in the country’s smartphone vendor rankings behind Huawei, whose share of the mainland smartphone market has grown to 25.7 per cent, and Xiaomi, with an 18.5 per cent share.

“While the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus remain the top selling smartphones in the region, pressure from Huawei’s Mate 8 and P9, Xiaomi’s RedMi Note 3 and Mi 5, and Oppo’s R9 has led to increased competition,” said Tamsin Timpson, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia.

With continued supply constraints of the iPhone SE, Timpson noted that the model was not able to make the expected impact, accounting for just 2.5 per cent of smartphone sales in the quarter.

The research firm said that anticipation for the newest iPhone, usually released in September, typically means a weaker summer period for Apple. But on the upside its sales data showed 51 per cent of Chinese iPhone owners have an iPhone 5s or older, which represents a large opportunity for upgrades to its newer models.

Outside China, Kantar noted that Apple returned to growth in the US and Europe’s top five markets, accounting for 31.8 per cent and 18.2 per cent of smartphone sales, respectively.