700m smartphones & tablets in China
Umeng's 2013 report has just come out, and it's full of fascinating data. (Umeng is an app analytics firm, much like Flurry, and has its code in a very large share of apps in use in China.)
Striking data points:
- There were 700m active smartphones and tablets in China at the end of 2013, and this almost doubled from 380m in Q1
- High-end phones are a big market: 27% of the total active base, and 80% of those are iPhones
- 55% of the top 1000 apps include links to the major Chinese social platforms
- 20% of the top games use licensed third-party IP
- App use and game use varies by how expense the phone is (unsurprising, but some good data on the details)
- The Android market remains fragmented: Samsung has 24% (much lower than globally), Xiaomi is in 4th place and 'other' is a third of the market
- And finally, pretty much every app category has at least doubled its active users in the year.
Note: A few people have suggested that the implied number of iPhones seems high as a percentage of total iPhone sales. (Umeng hasn't given a smartphone number to apply 80% of 27% to, but other estimates are about 500m = 108m). However, if you take imports of second-hand iPhones into account the percentage looks much more reasonable.