China, the world's largest mobile phone market, has not been easy for Apple, which is grappling with a lawsuit from a local firm over the iPad name and issues at its suppliers' factories over wages and working conditions.
With the number of mobile subscribers set to top 1 billion in China this year, there is cut-throat competition among South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Nokia, Apple and local firms Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.
While Apple regained its top spot as the world's largest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter and for last year as a whole, it slipped to 5th place in China, overtaken by ZTE.
Apple's China smartphone market share slid to 7.5 percent from 10.4 percent in July-September.
In the last quarter, Samsung knocked Nokia off the top slot, taking 24.3 percent of the market, more than three times Apple's share, data from research firm Gartner showed. Nokia's market share more than halved last year, from above 40 percent in the first quarter to below one fifth by the fourth quarter.
"Chinese handset makers have been actively promoting their smartphones with China's three telecoms operators, so we saw ZTE and Huawei gain significant market share," said Taipei-based Gartner analyst CK Lu.