Apple continues to dominate China's growing 4G handsets market, taking up 58.7 percent of the market share in the first two months of this year, a study conducted by Sino Market Research Limited revealed.

Although still market leader, Apple's share of the market dropped by 22.9 percent in the January-February period while second placer Samsung cornered 26.4 percent of the market, a 12.8 percent increase from the previous period.

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Chinese brand Coolpad came in at third place with a 9.4 percent market share, an impressive 8.2 percent rise from the previous reported period, data released by Sino Market Research showed.

The report, however, was based only on the 1.34 million 4G handset sales of China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by subscribers. Other major carriers, such as China Unicom and China Telecom, have not reported 4G handset sales because the 4G license was only issued by Chinese regulators in December 2013.

Apple's dominance in the country's 4G handsets market could be continue this year, experts said, because China Unicom and China Telecom are now starting to advertise their 4G handsets. China Mobile also announced that it will sell about 100 million units of the 4G LTE smartphones before the end of 2014.

Majority of China Mobile's 4G customers are using handsets made by Apple and South Korea's Samsung with only 14 percent opting for a Chinese-branded mobile phone. China Mobile has more than 775 million subscribers.

While the latest report boosted Apple's handsets in China, Chinese chip makers claimed the main beneficiaries of the 4G program in China are large US mobile chip manufacturers.

Sources said that while the government's 4G program is aimed at providing domestic smartphone brands to compete with foreign counterparts, many Chinese brands are already left behind by their overseas competitors in terms of 4G terminal developments.