There has been a lot of predictions about when China will become the world’s biggest economy, some say it will achieve this within a short five years. Back in August, we reported China overtook America to become the world’s biggest PC market in the world. Today, according to research firm, Strategy Analytics, China has also become the largest smart-phone market in the world by volume.

Deliveries of smart phones to operators and retailers in China grew 58% in the third quarter from the previous quarter to 24 million units. That surpassed 23 million units delivered to the U.S. market, down 7% from the previous quarter, according to the report.

However in terms of revenue, there is still a long way to go. The key driver for this surge in smart-phone sales is apparently the under 30 year old middle class youth market who have an insatiable demand to play with and show off their latest devices. This is clearly evident by watching young people glued to their smartphone walking on the street, in the subway, in the lift – everywhere!

Nokia still has the biggest market share at 6.8% and Samsung is the second with 4.2%. Nokia leads the way because of their first mover advantage into China. However, now with more choices from alternatives like cheaper Chinese brands running the Android operating system like ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi, people are switching away from Nokia and Blackberry. Of course the phone everyone wants in the Apple iPhone which is the symbol for smart-phones. People want it so badly, they are willing to fight for it, literally.

Jason Lim

Jason is an Australian born Chinese living in Beijing, specializing in entrepreneurship, start-ups and the investment eco-system in China, especially in the tech and social area.

Join the Conversation

4 Comments

  1. Yeah,Because the population is very big in China.There is great demand of smart-phone.
    Furthermore,Nokia is popular in China.But the price is still a little high in the shopping mall.It’s cheaper to buy from site busytrade.com,tatamall.com and Tmall.com.

  2. This is why many say China is the un-crowned King of the world !! The day is not far when it would  the largest powerful economy of the world.

  3. Maybe the Chinese young people like the smartphone and promote the Chinese Mobile phone market.What is more,China is a big country ,and like the Nokia smartphone  more and more cheaper so many people can do to buy it.

Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.