New estimates project that there were 21 million iOS devices in China at the end of 2011, with the bulk of these devices concentrated in the country’s biggest urban centers.
Josh Ong, AppleInsider:
Stenvall Skoeld, a “strategic advisory firm” focusing on China, released a report (viaThe Next Web) late last week estimating Apple’s penetration levels across geographic regions in the country. The analysis combined the firm’s own intel with data from a variety of sources, including Morgan Stanley, Flurry Analytics and Umeng, a Chinese mobile research company.
In the report, more than half of all iOS devices in China are located in a mere handful of provinces and cities. Guangdong province was listed as having the greatest amount of iOS devices at 13.42 percent, second place was Beijing with 10.38 percent. Shanhai, Zhejian and Jiangsu filled out the top five. The western province of Tibet was estimated to have the lowest share of iOS devices at .10 percent.
Ong says, “Flurry recently declared China as the global leader in iOS and Android device activations. A separate analysis late last year named China as having passed the U.S. to become the world’s largest smartphone market.”
The number of iOS devices in China is likely much higher than the report shows, as China Mobile claims there are 15 million iPhone users on its network, even though the carrier does not officially sell the device.
