The smartphone market in China reportedly shrunk by four percent in the first quarter of this year, but Apple still saw impressive growth.

This four percent drop marks the first time in six years that the Chinese smartphone market has seen a year over year decline, even as Apple drove great growth, according to a research company.

On Monday, May 11, research firm IDC published intriguing data from its latest Mobile Phone Tracker survey. The company revealed that 98.8 million smartphones shipped in China during the first three months of this year.

"Smartphones are becoming increasingly saturated in China," said Kitty Fok, Managing Director at IDC China. "China is oftentimes thought of as an emerging market but the reality is that the vast majority of phones sold in China today are smartphones, similar to other mature markets like the US, UK, Australia, and Japan. Just like these markets, convincing existing users as well as feature phone users to upgrade to new smartphones will now be the key to further growth in the China market."

Despite this contraction, however, Apple still saw a massive sales grown of 62.1 percent year over year. According to IDC estimates, Apple shipped roughly 14.5 million iPhones in China during the first quarter of 2015. This means that Apple earned a 14.7 percent market share, which makes it the country's top smartphone vendor.

The second-largest smartphone vendor in China, meanwhile, is Xiaomi, which has shipped roughly 13.5 million smartphones in the country during the first quarter, IDC estimates. Huawei took the third spot with 11.2 million units, followed by Samsung and Lenovo with 9.6 and 8.2 million units, respectively.

Samsung saw the worst losses of all top five smartphone vendors in China, as the company saw a 53 percent decline in unit shipments year over year in the first three months of 2015. Lenovo saw a 22.1 percent decline, while the three other top vendors dropped 8.3 percent (see image above). IDC further expects "relatively flat growth" for China this year.

"To successfully combat local players overseas, Chinese vendors will need to focus on channel relationships and localized marketing strategies," added Tay Xiaohan, Senior Market Analyst with IDC Asia/Pacific's Client Devices team. "Most of the market's growth will come from sub-US$150 phones as feature phone users switch to low-cost smartphones."