China now has 520M smartphone users, will top 700M by 2018

China currently has 519.7 million active smartphone users, according to new data from Emarketer.

The new research shows that the figure will rise to 574.2 million Chinese smartphone users by 2015, representing half of all mobile phone users in the country. Looking even further ahead, Emarketer anticipates that more than half of the entire population of China will have a smartphone by 2018 as the number edges past 700 million.

China’s top search engine recently estimated that the nation has 386 million active Android users (at Q2 2014). Mixing and matching numbers from different sources is a bad idea, but it’s still safe to say that low-cost Android phones – especially from homegrown brands like Xiaomi, Coolpad, and Huawei – have helped make Google’s OS the top choice for most smartphone buyers.

See: Smartphones in India and China: a tale of growth versus stagnation in 2014

Slowing growth

While China’s market for smartphones still has room for growth, the numbers show that growth can only slow as the devices become commonplace and basic mobile phones become ancient relics.

Indeed, India is now the fast-growing mobile market to watch. A separate report from Emarketer states that India is poised to pass the US to become the world’s second largest smartphone market by 2016. By that time, India will have a little over 200 million active smartphone users.

This post China now has 520M smartphone users, will top 700M by 2018 appeared first on Tech in Asia.

China now has 520M smartphone users, will top 700M by 2018