CHINESE phone makers Huawei Technologies and ZTE both doubled their market share in the country last year, according to a Beijing-based research firm.

South Korea's Samsung replaced Nokia to become the leading brand in China last year. Nokia, Huawei and ZTE followed. Apple vaulted into No. 6 in China for the first time in the top 10 brand list due to the popularity of its iPhone in the world's biggest phone market, Analysys International.

"The market share has become more balanced and there is no absolute dominant player now," said Wang Ying, an analyst at Analysys International.

By the end of the fourth quarter, Samsung had a market share of 22 percent, followed by Nokia with 15 percent, Huawei with 13 percent and ZTE with 11 percent, according to Analysys yesterday.

Nokia and Samsung previously dominated the market with a combined share of 44 percent by the end of the first quarter while Huawei had only 5 percent and ZTE took 6 percent.

Apple, which launched the latest iPhone 4S in January, took 6 percent of the domestic market in the three months ended December 31, ahead of Motorola and HTC, according to Analysys.

China's mobile phone subscriber base grew 1.2 percent monthly to 987.58 million in January, the country's three mobile operators said on Monday.