Digitimes Research: Smartphone sales in China to grow 137% to 189 million units in 2012

James Wang, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei [Wednesday 26 December 2012]

Sales of smartphones in China are expected to grow 137% on year to 189 million units in 2012, buoyed mostly by a take-off in demand for EDGE and TD-SCDMA models in the second half of the year, according to Digitimes Research.

Local brands in China have been benefiting from the increasing popularity of EDGE and TD-SCDMA models as international players have paid less attention to smartphones supporting these two technologies.

As a result, local brands will account for 61% of China's smartphone market in 2012, an increase of 29pp from a year earlier, said Digitimes Research.

Android smartphone market share in China has increased steadily, and is likely to reach 50.8 million units or 86% of total smartphones sales in the fourth quarter of 2012. For all of 2012, sales of Android phones in China are expected to top 157 million units, increasing 260% from a year ago.

In light of the growing importance of China's smartphone market, Lenovo is expected to rank as one of the top-10 smartphone vendors globally in 2012, in addition to Huawei and ZTE.

Although China Wireless (Coolpad) will be unable to enter the top-10 smartphone vendor rankings in 2012, its smartphone shipments for the year may be behind those of the tenth largest vendor by just 1.8 million units, estimated Digitimes Research.