Apple is bucking the trend of a slowing growth rate for global smartphone sales with significant growth. But Lenovo-Motorola’s sales fall sharply as do those of global leader Samsung, according to new data from research firm Gartner.

A big factor in slow growth? Lenovo’s home market of China where Apple is growing ever stronger even as sales in China declined for the first time.

Overall, sales grew 13.5 percent in the second quarter compared to a year earlier to 330 million units.

While demand continues to increase in emerging markets, Gartner says overall smartphone sales were mixed.Smartphone sales in China fell 4 percent year-over-year — the first such decline for the world’s most populous country and biggest market for smartphones.

China accounted for 30 percent of total smartphone sales in the second quarter. But Gartner says it has reached saturation, as its phone market is driven by replacement purchases instead of first-time buyers.

Lenovo, which is cutting its Motorola work force sharply at the Motorola headquarters in Chicago and its company-wide headcount by 7 percent, faltered with shipments dropping some 2.5 million to just over 16.4 million.

Its market share plunged to 5 percent from 6.6 percent.

Apple on the other hand shipped 48 million smartphones and grew its global market share to 14.6 percent. Totals a year ago were 35.3 million and 12.2 percent.

Samsung remained No. 1 but its market share dropped to 21.9 percent from 26.2 percent and shipments declined by nearly 4 million to just over 72 million.

“While demand for lower-cost 3G and 4G smartphones continued to drive growth in emerging markets, overall smartphone sales remained mixed region by region in the second quarter of 2015,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

Gartner noted that sales declined in China by 4 percent.

“China is the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 percent of total sales of smartphones in the second quarter of 2015. Its poor performance negatively affected the performance of the mobile phone market in the second quarter,” said Gupta. “China has reached saturation — its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers. Beyond the lower-end phone segment, the appeal of premium smartphones will be key for vendors to attract upgrades and to maintain or grow their market share in China.”