China’s Smartphone Market Will Soon Be World’s Largest

The Chinese smartphone market is on track to become the world?’s largest by the end of this month. When this month comes to a close, China will have more active smartphones than the US.

China and the US nearly tied at the end of January in terms of new device activations, with the US activating 222 million devices and China activating 221 million. Flurry‘s research shows that China is projected to activate 246 million devices by the end of February. While the US market will still be growing, as it is projected to activate 230 million devices this month, it will have fallen behind China in total number of active devices. Were it not for the US’s holiday season, this would have happened two months sooner.

China’s growth does not come as a surprise. The country has over four times the population of the US and surpassed the US in terms of new device adoption a year ago. The US is not expected to overtake China given the vast difference in the size of their populations. India, whose population of 1.2 billion is just under China’s 1.3 billion, stands the best chance of surpassing China in the future. However, India currently only has 19 million active smart devices, making such a development years off at best.

The US and China both have over five times the active installed base of the third largest market, which is the UK with 43 million active devices. South Korea is fourth with 30 million.

China no longer leads the world in growth. Columbia is currently seeing the fastest adoption of Android and iOS devices, followed by Vietnam and Turkey. China is now sixth on the list. Smartphones are currently being adopted faster than any prior technological innovation in history including desktop computers and the internet.

[Image via ShutterStock]