zlacker

I thought China overtook US (an article on 18 october after googling it)

>>NicoJu+(OP)
For phones, yes. It's not clear if China is Apple's largest market overall though.

>>NicoJu+(OP)
Those articles all say that the pre-orders will surpass the US market's equivalent pre-orders. I can't find anything making it official that on an annualized basis China has officially passed the US for iPhone sales. Last year Tim Cook was stating that it would occur soon.

Apple's US unit volume is close to 50 million per year. For 2014, Chinese consumers are expected to buy close to 300 million smart phones, and Apple has close to 15% of that market. So I'd say it's a pretty tight race currently. Apple has a big problem in China however, they're getting squeezed substantially by the domestics (Xiaomi etc). In the US that's not happening, and Apple has held on to their strong ~45% market share.

http://www.ibtimes.com/iphone-6-preorders-china-set-surpass-...

"China could soon surpass the U.S. as the biggest market for Apple Inc.'s iPhone. A report on China's Tencent Monday said Chinese consumers preordered 20 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones in the first weekend they were available for preorder.

"If those numbers turn into sales when the iPhone is released Oct. 17, China will have doubled the 10 million phones sold in the first weekend in the U.S., setting it on the path to be the world's biggest market for iPhones."

>>advent+B2
A large number of phones sold in the US (and presumably other early release countries) are grey marketed to China though. I dont see any reliable estimates on the size of the market today though.