China Overtakes US in Smartphone Shipments

Posted 11/25/2011 at 5:29am | by Pulkit Chandna

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With China contributing such a huge chunk of the world’s human population and being the world’s largest cellphone market, it should not surprise anyone that it’s said to have overtaken the United States in smartphone shipments during the third quarter. According to research firm Strategy Analytics’ latest research, China is now the world’s largest smartphone market in terms of total shipments. Hit the jump for more.

“Smartphone shipments grew 58 percent sequentially to reach a record 23.9 million units in China during Q3 2011. In contrast, smartphone shipments fell 7 percent sequentially to reach 23.3 million units in the United States. China has overtaken the United States for the first time to become the world’s largest smartphone market by volume,” said Linda Sui, an analyst at Strategy Analytics.

Tom Kang, Director at Strategy Analytics, cited a number of factors for the ongoing smartphone boom in China, including increasing retail availability, subsidizing of high-end phones and the abundance of affordable Android-based smartphones.

But despite all this, the US still remains the largest smartphone market in terms of revenue. It’ll take China three to four years to overtake the US in this regard, according to Kang. In fact, even China’s lead in smartphone shipments is likely to take a couple of  quarters to stabilize.

"In the coming one or two quarters, it's going to be a seesaw game,” said Kang. “But going into next year, China will outstrip the U.S. market continuously. China is going to be larger every quarter."