Why low-end phones are so important: Mobile user base grows to 1.17 billion in China

As growth in the high-end smartphone market slows, new data helps illustrate once again why low-cost smartphones and feature phones are so important. According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the mobile phone user base in China grew 12% on-year in May to nearly 1.17 billion subscribers. Digitimes reports that 303.37 million of those users owned 3G-enabled phones and 813.39 million had access to the Internet. To help illustrate just how huge cell phone proliferation is in China, consider this: Only 274.07 million people in the country subscribed to fixed-line telephone services in May. Where smartphones are concerned, Samsung is currently the top-selling vendor while Apple sits at No.5, according to recent data from market research firms IDC and Strategy Analytics.

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This article was originally published on BGR.com