Almost two-thirds of the handsets sold in China this year are powered by Android OS, making China the largest single market for the Google platform. A third of Android devices sold in 2012 were sold in China, according to research from Informa Telecoms & Media. China is the fastest-growing smartphone market with year-on-year growth of 85 percent in 2012, driven by demand for Android phones.
The US is the second-largest market for Android with an 11 percent share, and Informa's research anticipates that at least one in every two mobile phones sold in the US in 2013 will be powered by this platform.
Of the other platforms, Apple iPhone and Microsoft's Windows Phone hold minority shares of China's total handset sales, around 5 percent and 1 percent, respectively, in 2012. However, due to Nokia's partnership with China Mobile, Windows Phone is expected to improve its share in 2013 to 2 percent while iPhone is expected to lose market share slightly if Apple does not manage to create a TD-LTE variant for the Chinese market.
With the continued rise of top-end Android devices, iPhone sales in the US could face significant challenges. Informa anticipates that US sales of the iPhone will decline to 34 million units in 2013, down from 35.5 million in 2012. Microsoft is expected to slightly improve its market share in the US in 2013 to 6.5 percent as both Nokia and HTC strengthen their Windows Phone marketing strategies and device portfolios, and tighten their partnerships with operators in the region.
