(Yicai Global) Dec. 12 -- The combined market share of the five biggest mobile phone brands including Apple Inc. [NASDAQ:AAPL], Xiaomi Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co. in China increased to 91 percent from 79 percent one year ago, demonstrating the continued centralization of the sector.

Competitive advantages of leading phone makers are becoming apparent, online media outlet Jiemian News cited the latest Kantar Worldpanel global handset market report as saying yesterday.

The report did not give specific market shares for the top five handset makers, which also included Vivo Mobile Communications Co. and Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp.

Apple's saw its share of the Chinese market increase by 0.5 percentage points in the first ten months of the year compared with the same period of last year, while its share in the UK, US, and Japan fell by around 7 to 8 percentage points.