China is the world’s largest market for smartphone
China’s situation
Now that 20% of its population owns a smartphone, China has surpassed the United States as the largest smartphone market. As of February, the country has become the world’s largest consumer of smartphones, according to a study by Flurry, a market research company .
In January, more than 221 million active smartphones have been listed on the Chinese market. The Chinese market is growing at 209% per year. And according to Flurry, the number of smartphone users has now exceeded 246 million in China, against 230 million for the United States in recent months.
Comparatively, India, the world’s second most populous country only has about 19 million of smartphone users. India smartphone market is only the 8th fastest growing smartphone market in the world, but in 2012, the country nearly tripled its smartphone users (with a growth about 189%). If this growth continues, the country should soon enter the top 5 largest smartphone markets. France and Canada are tied for the seventh largest smartphone markets in the world with 23 million smartphone users. Germany ranks sixth with 27 million active devices, followed by Japan with 29 million and South Korea with 30 million users. Finally, the United Kingdom is currently ranked third in the world market, with 43 million of users.
Flurry states that in “this new era of mobile phones, driven by the simultaneous arrival of high-tech chip and high speed network, Apple and Google have managed to create a technological revolution, the fastest adopted in the history”. The smartphone revolution has even been more quickly adopted than the PC or the Internet. At this rate, the smartphone revolution will soon spread to all reaches of the globe.
Leader on Chinese market
Today, Samsung is the big winner of the Chinese smartphone market. According to figures revealed by Strategy Analytics, an American research company, more than 10 million Samsung smartphones were sold in China at the beginning of 2013. This figure represents 18.5% of the total Chinese smartphone market. Based on this data, it is the first time that Samsung was able to sell more than 10 million units in China in a single quarter, surpassing its biggest competitor Apple.
Apple is lagging behind in the Chinese market as it finds itself at the sixth place with only 6.1 million of iPhone sold. It was beaten by Huawei Technologies who placed second with 8.1 million units sold. Lenovo holds the third spot and is followed closely by the Chinese manufacturers ZTE and Coolpad.
Daxue China Market Research
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Picture: China smartphone
