China was biggest smartphone market by shipment volume in Q3

China was biggest smartphone market by shipment volume in Q3

A new report by Strategy Analytics puts China ahead of the US in terms of smartphone shipments in Q3. What's more, while the number of shipments in China grew 58% to 23.9 million units, the numbers in the US fell 7% to 23.3 million units.

Nokia is still holding on to the lion's share of smartphone shipments in China (28.5% or 6.8 million units shipped in Q3) with Samsung coming in second (17.6% of all shipments in Q3 or 4.2 million units).

Cheap, locally-made phones from the likes of ZTE are also gaining popularity quickly as is the iPhone along with other high-end models. Still, the market is oriented more towards the lower-end of the price scale, so the US maintains the lead in revenue from mobile phones despite the lower number of units shipped.

There, the high-enders that rule the market - HTC is on top with 5.6 million units shipped in Q3 of 2011 (that's a 24% share) with Apple following close by with 4.8 million units shipped (20.6%).

Still, with 1.3 billion people, the Chinese market will become more and more important.

Here's some advice that Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, offers smartphone makers

source: gsmarena.com