SEOUL: A consumer survey showed the popularity of the iPhone 6 has driven Apple’s market share in China to its highest ever while Samsung has continued to lose ground.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said its latest survey of 15,000 people living in Chinese cities showed Apple’s market share reached 25.4 percent in the November-January period, up from 20.9 percent a year earlier.

That was a record for Apple in the world’s largest smartphone market, but not enough to catch up Chinese maker Xiaomi, which claimed 27.6 percent.

The research firm said the market share of Samsung Electronics Co. eroded further to 11.3 percent. It was 22.2 percent a year earlier.

Kantar conducts a monthly online survey of the same 15,000 city-dwelling Chinese who are 16 years or older.

Its latest consumer survey sheds more light on the smartphone market in China amid differing figures from market research companies about which manufacturer came out on top after intense competition in 2014.

IHS said Xiaomi was the top seller in China last year followed by Samsung Electronics with 15 percent and 14 percent market shares respectively. But another research firm Canalys said Apple was the winner for the first time in the last quarter of 2014, followed by Xiaomi and Samsung.

Although the rankings may differ, all the research reflects similar trends: Apple is on the rise in China boosted by iPhone 6 sales and Samsung is likely the biggest loser.

Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar, said the iPhone 6, released in October, was the best-selling smartphone model in China in the November-January period followed by Xiaomi’s RedMi Note.

Tamsin Timpson, the research company’s strategic insight director, said Samsung’s China market share was at its lowest level since the company began its smartphone consumer survey in 2012.

Samsung Electronics unveiled the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge recently, part of the company’s efforts to improve phone design and reclaim ground lost to Apple and Xiaomi.

According to research firm Gartner, Apple Inc. sold the most number of smartphones globally in the fourth quarter, overtaking Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. for the first time since 2011, .

Apple sold 74,832 smartphones to end users worldwide, ahead of the 73,032 phones sold by Samsung, according to Gartner’s.

The success of big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus drove Apple’s sales in its first quarter ended Dec. 27. The company reported a profit of $18 billion for the period, the biggest ever reported by a public company, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.

Apple’s smartphones sales jumped about 49 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner. In contrast, Samsung, the market dominator since 2011, recorded a nearly 12 percent fall.

In January, the company posted its fifth consecutive quarter of earnings decline in the mobile division.

“Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Besides losing market share to the costlier iPhones, the Korean company has been battling low-cost Chinese vendors such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

Samsung unveiled its new range of slim-bodied Galaxy S smartphones on Monday, made from aircraft-grade metal.