After enjoying a blistering pace of growth, China's smartphone market is showing signs of reaching a saturation point.
According to Gartner, a U.S. market research firm, on August 20, China's smartphone sales marked a negative year-to-year growth in the second quarter of this year, first in history.
China's smartphone market showed a 4-percent decline in the second quarter of this year on a year-on-year basis. In the second quarter of this year, global mobile phone sales reached 445.75 million units, up 0.35 percent from 444.19 million units a year ago.
Of the total, smartphone sales accounted for 330 million units, up 13.5 percent year on year. This figure is the lowest quarterly growth since 2013.
Gartner blamed the sluggish growth mainly on the Chinese market which accounts for about 30 percent of the world's smartphone market.
Samsung Electronics, which ranked No. 1 in terms of smartphone sales, also gained the largest share even in the mobile phone area. It sold 88.73 million units of mobile phones in the second quarter, with its market share estimated at 19.9 percent, followed by Apple with 10.8 percent.