Android takes 90 percent smartphone share in China in Q3
The operating system had owned 83 percent of the smartphone market during the second quarter.
Android's dominance in the Chinese smartphone market only strengthened in the third quarter, according to new data.
During the third quarter, Android owned 90.1 percent of China's smartphone market, up from from 83 percent in the second quarter, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. Meanwhile, Apple's iOS, which owned 6 percent of the market in the second quarter, fell to 4.2 percent in the third quarter. Symbian dropped to 2.4 percent market ownership, according to Analysys.
News outlet Tech in Asia was first to report on the Analysys report.
The smartphone market in China is booming. Back in August, another research firm, Canalys, reported that over 42 million smartphones shipped to China during the second quarter. A total of 158 million smartphones shipped worldwide. During that period, Samsung was the top smartphone vendor in China, followed by ZTE, Lenovo, and Huawei. Apple was far behind, with shipments dropping 37 percent compared with the first quarter.
The issue for Apple in China is that its iPhone tends to be far more expensive than many Android-based devices. In fact, as Tech In Asia points out, the iPhone's average cost is 3.25 times higher than that of the average Android smartphone.
Despite that, Apple is making a significant push for China. The company's iPhone 5 is reportedly launching by the end of this year on both China Telecom and China Unicom networks.
(Via The Next Web)