Smartphone shipments to China outstrip US

China has been dubbed the world's next ecommerce superpower and now, as more research shows, it's proving to be a monster of a mobile market, too.

by Helen Leggatt

According to stats released by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China is the country with the most mobile users in the world with over 952 million users.

Over 12.2 million new mobile phone users signed up in September alone and still they come. In fact, as new data from research firm Strategy Analytics shows, China has now overtaken the US in the total number of smartphone shipments.

Shipments to China reached 23.9 million devices in the third quarter of this year, a 58% increase on the previous quarter. That compares to 23.3 million shipped to the US, 7% less than in the previous quarter.

"The US remains the world's largest smartphone market by revenue, but China has overtaken the United States in terms of volume," said Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston.

"China is now at the forefront of the worldwide mobile computing boom," Mawston added. "China has become a large and growing smartphone market that no hardware vendor, component maker or content developer can afford to ignore."

The growth has been driven by the influx of affordable Android models, says Strategy Analytics, coupled with significant subsidizing of high-end smartphone models by mobile operators and better retail availability of devices.

At the start of this year China boasted just 1.8% of the global market share in terms of the number of mobile app sessions, found analysis by mobile analytics firm Flurry.

By July, China had leapfrogged ahead of the UK's 5.4% share.

Today, China's global market share sits at 7.1%, second only to the US with its massive 47% share.

Tags: Asia, China, mobile apps, mobile marketing, mobile technology, mobile users, shipments, smartphone market, US