Apple may dominate in many parts of the world, but in China the iPhone is struggling to catch up against Samsung's range of smartphones. Samsung hold almost 25 percent of the market for smartphones, according to Gartner Inc research.

Apple have managed to land two sales partners now but figures are still not competitive against Samsung.. This market is critical for all the major players as it is projected to grow by 52 percent to 137 million units, overtaking the U.S. for the time. Apple have caused problems for themselves as they didn't make a device compatible with the biggest operator – China Mobile Ltd.

Gartner analyst Sandy Chen said “I don’t expect Apple to replace Samsung any time soon, China Telecom is the nation’s smallest carrier, so the extent to which they can help Apple is quite limited.”

Bloomberg add “The 16.8 percentage-point gap in China between Cupertino, California-based Apple and Samsung almost doubled from the third quarter. While Samsung is No. 1 and Apple No. 5 in China, the global story is different: Worldwide, Apple passed its Suwon, South Korea-based competitor to become the biggest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner.

Apple’s partnerships with China’s second- and third-largest carriers give it access to about 34 percent of the nation’s 988 million mobile users, while Samsung targeted the whole market. iPhones aren’t sold to China Mobile’s 655 million subscribers, a number almost equal to the combined population of the U.S., Brazil and Mexico.”

Kitguru says: Samsung rule the roost in China. It will be interesting to see how it changes over the next year.

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