For the first time ever, China now leads the United States on Apple and Google Android smartphone and tablet activations, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry.
As recently as Jan. 2011, the U.S. accounted for 28 percent of total iOS and Android device activations worldwide, with China trailing at 8 percent, Flurry reports. But the company projects China will generate 24 percent of iOS and Android activations in Mar. 2012, ahead of the U.S. at 21 percent.
"With China now activating more devices per month than the U.S., this means that the gap is closing between the two countries in terms of installed base," writes Flurry Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago on the firm's blog. "Not only is China already the second largest app economy, but also could eventually overtake the U.S. as the country with the largest installed base of smart device users. We estimate that the U.S., a more mature market, currently has more than twice as many active devices than China. However, China, a faster growing, emerging market, already has twice as large an installed base as the next largest market, the U.K."
The explosive growth of the Chinese smart device market also corresponds with surging consumer interest in mobile applications. As of the first quarter of 2011, U.S. subscribers accounted for 56 percent of all iOS and Android app sessions worldwide; the next nine largest markets--China, the U.K., South Korea, France, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany and Spain--generated 27 percent of all sessions, with the remainder of the world making up the remaining 17 percent. As of the first quarter of 2012, the absolute number of sessions in the U.S. has more than doubled year-over-year, but its share of total sessions has declined to 46 percent.
"In other words, while the U.S. app market is growing rapidly, the rest of the world is growing even faster," Farago explains. "Looking at the balance of the top 10 countries, this group has increased in collective sessions by 3.4 times between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, resulting in an increase in total session-share from 27 percent to 30 percent. Further, the rest of the world (another 217 countries across which Flurry tracks user sessions) has grown by more than four times, increasing in session-share from 17 percent to 24 percent."
