(Yicai Global) July 28 -- China’s smartphone sales fell 11 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, while Honor, the budget phone brand Huawei Technologies sold last November, joined the ranks of the country’s top five handset makers for the first time.

China’s smartphone sales stood at 78.1 million units in the three months ended June 30, according to data released today by International Data Corporation.

Vivo topped the rankings with 18.6 million handsets sold in the quarter, while Oppo, Xiaomi and Apple came in second, third and fourth. Sales of the top four greatly increased, but still could not make up for the sales plunge at Huawei, IDC’s data showed.

Shenzhen-based Huawei’s phone sales have sunk since it sold Honor to a joint venture set up by a company under the Shenzhen city government and over 30 dealers and agents after the US government restricted its access to chip-making technologies.

Honor took fifth place due to the good performances of its Changwan 20 economy series, Play 5 mid-range series, as well as the recently launched Honor 50 mid- to high-end series powered by Qualcomm chips, IDC said. Honor had a market share of almost 7 percent in the first quarter after selling 6.9 million phones, which was a 46 percent decline from the same period last year.

For the first half, China’s smartphone sales rose 6.5 percent to 164 million units thanks to the strong rebound in the first quarter, according to IDC.

Editor: Futura Costaglione