According to a study conducted by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the world leader in telecommunications market analysis, more than 50% of all smartphones in China run on Google’s operating system.
All thanks to local vendors who produce budget devices on the OS of the search giant.
The problem, as you know, is that the absolute majority of their devices do not have the official Google Play app store. However, this does not prevent, as we have repeatedly written, the Chinese mobile games market from growing rapidly, whose turnover by the end of 2013 may exceed the $1 billion mark.
The latter is facilitated by the rapid penetration of smartphones in China. 43% of the mobile handset market is eaten away by them.
According to Craig Yu, director of Consumer market research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, conventional mobile phones are beginning to lose their price appeal in the eyes of buyers as smartphones become more affordable and offer much more and better functionality. Almost half of the owners of regular cell phones switched to modern gadgets in the last quarter.
The second and third places in the OS market in China were taken by Symbian and iOS, whose market shares are 23% and 19.9%, respectively. The share of Symbian decreased by 2% over the last quarter, while the position of iOS remains stable. Following this trend, Symbian is likely to lose its second place and end up in third, over the next two quarters.