China becomes world's largest smartphone market

WITH a huge contribution coming from low-cost Smartphone local manufacturers such as ZTE, a report by strategy Analytics, a South African based firm research has rated Chine as the world's leading market for Smartphone in terms of volume.Chine came from the third position in the third quarter study pushing the United States to the second place. Smartphone shipments to China rose to a record 24m during the period, compared with 23m for the US, according to the research. The consultancy firm said that shipments to China were boosted by "a wave of low-cost Android models from local Chinese brands".This is the first time that China has overtaken the US in smartphone market. "China's rapid growth has been driven by an increasing availability of smartphones in the retail channels," said Tom Kang, of Strategy Analytics. The company said that while shipments to China grew by 58 per cent sequentially during the period, those to the US fell by 7 per cent. Also China is the world's biggest market for mobile phones with almost 952m users, and continues to grow at a fast pace than that of Nigeria. At the same time, there has been a push by mobile phone operators to get more users to sign up for 3G services. Executive Director of Strategy Analytics, Neil Mawston, said that as consumers take up these services, the demand for gadgets such as smartphones is likely to rise further adding that "China is now at the forefront of the worldwide mobile computing boom." "China has become a large and growing smartphone market that no hardware vendor, component maker or content developer can afford to ignore," he added. So far China has a smartphone shipment of 23.9 million devices being delivered to operators in the country during the third quarter, compared to 23.3 million in the US. ...all the news, all the time PAGE
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