China becomes Apple’s fastest growing iPhone market

Yesterday, Apple announced its financial figures for the first three months of 2011 (which it reports as Q2 2011). The numbers are quite impressive, with strong growth across the board. One country that we didn’t mention, however, was China. PC World reports that during the call, Apple’s acting CEO Tim Cook said that iPhone sales in “Greater China” grew by nearly 250 percent from the same period (Jan. – March) last year.

In addition, the Cuppurtino company made roughly $5 billion from China in the last six months, about 10 percent of Apple’s revenues. “So we’re extremely happy with how we’re doing in China,” said Cook. The U.S. put up a valiant fight though; iPhone sales grew by 155 percent here in the west.

While earlier versions of the iPhone didn’t quite click with Chinese consumers, the iPhone 4 has been a hit since its debut last September, according to analysts. Thanks to the success of the device, Apple has somewhere around 10 percent of the Chinese smartphone market, up from about 5 percent at the beginning of 2010. Internationally-savvy competitors like Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola continue to dominate sales. China has more than 850 million mobile phone users. Total Chinese smartphone sales are expected to reach 95 million in 2011.

Not bad. It would be interesting to see how Android devices are doing in the Chinese market, as Samsung and Motorola are some of Google’s strongest partners.

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