Apple's iPhone loses sales crown to Oppo's R9 in China in 2016

Apple Inc's iPhone last year lost the title of the best-selling smartphone in China for the first time in four years, highlighting the mounting challenges it faces from local smartphone vendors, a new report said.

The decline is in line with the US tech firm's latest financial report that its sales in China dropped 12 percent in the quarter ending December.

According to Counterpoint Technology Market Research, Oppo Electronics Corp's middle-end R9 handset was China's most popular model in 2016, with an annual shipment of 17 million units and a market share of 4 percent.